Personal Post: Top Video Games of the Decade (2010-2019)

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 To think that ten years have already come and gone. As we head into the 2020’s we must take the time to reflect and plan from where we were in 2010 to where we are now to where we want to be in the future. But that’s a bit too overwhelming and philosophical for this guy so let’s instead talk about the best video games of the decade. Now this is all my list covering games that I’ve personally played that were released in the United States that year so if you don’t see your game of that year on here leave a comment and let me know how much of a non gamer I am. Also there won’t be any compilations or collections on this list so no Mega Man X Legacy Collection, Bioshock collection or anything like that. 

 Nor will I put any game on here just for the critical acclaim that they’ve received or what everybody else thinks should be on the list for that year or anything like that. If you want that go to IGN where they’ve most likely put Ocarina of Time 3DS on their list because it’s expected and everyone is a Emperor Damned Sheep. No my choices are ones that I either really do love or have a personal attachment to me as a gamer and as a person. Though to give you all hopefully some idea of what kind of gamer I am here’s the list of the runners up for their respective years.

2010 God of War 3/ Bioshock 2

2011 infamous 2

2013 Project X Zone/Bioshock Infinite/ SMT4 

2014 Persona Q Shadow of the Labyrinth/Ni No Kuni

2016 SMT 4 apocalypse

2017 Persona 5/ Pokémon Sun

2018 Fist of the North Star Lost Paradise/ Bendy and the Ink Machine (PS4)/ Ni No Kuni 2/ Mega Man 11

2019 Luigi’s Mansion 3

Now that you have a taste here’s what I consider to be the best games of the decade in the year of their release.

 Starting off with 2010 I’m going with the release of my very first non Persona SMT game Shin Megami Tensai Strange Journey. With Persona 4 I discovered my favorite franchise and fittingly enough Strange Journey was my first step into the wider SMT catalogue. The best way to describe the transition from the two was like one minute you were watching Diamond is Unbreakable and the next; a remake of Saving Private Ryan written by Alan Moore. Strange Journey introduced me to the negotiation system, a more serious story, even harder bosses, but slamming difficulty and the moral choices between Law, Neutral and Chaos that the wider SMT games are known for. Now I know that this game got remade in 2018 and while I do love it to pieces and consider it essential for your 3DS collection the original is more personal to me and while I will definitely recommend the 3DS version the original game is what I will remember 2010 for, when I took a chance, chose my unit and ventured forth into a strange and dangerous land and will carry those experiences with me forever.

 2011 however will be much shorter since honesty I would rather keep any positive comments toward Konami at a bare minimum considering how they are the pinnacle of the Japanese Hell Company and thus earns my unyielding hatred. Downpour contributing to that as well when Konami tried to release this game, Book of Lost Memories and the horrendous Silent Hill HD collection during the aptly named month of Madness. The last hurrah of the Silent Hill franchise; Downpour was the spiritual follow up to Silent Hill 2 that Homecoming tried and failed so hard to be. Though it did have its flaws with the Otherworld segments being reduced to running away from a red vortex for a few minutes to the breakable weapons the spirit of what Silent Hill should be still shined through without having to lean on nostalgia. Plus it was one of the few games that acknowledges that Silent Hill 4 existed so there’s that. So; short and sweet, this game is underrated and #FucKonami.

 Now I did say that compilations are off the list but that doesn’t mean that remakes of the same game with new original content were excluded. So that means that I can put Persona 4 Golden as my pick of 2012 no problem. Oh the poor PS Vita, a lovely little handheld that Sony sadly neglected. Before the Switch came around this was as close as we could get to having full console quality video games on the go, with the enhanced rerelease of Persona 4 being the pinnacle of that notion. With this game I will forever refer to the PS Vita as the Persona 4 Golden machine.

 Aside from that Persona 4 Gold is basically Persona 4 only portable with new content, simple as that. And if you have a problem with that (other than "please port it to a system that more than a few people own so everyone can enjoy it aside from watch let’s plays") let me know. Not much else to say but it’s Jojo’s BizzaRPG 4 on the go, what’s not to love?

 Now 2013 was a great year for the 3DS with Project X Zone introducing me to new franchises I was only casually aware of to SMT4 my first proper mainline SMT game. But for me I have to give that spot to the game that got me back to a childhood classic, Pokémon X. I skipped generations 4 and 5 simply because I was kind of bored with Pokémon by that point so seeing as I had a new 3DS and needed games for my library I figured what the heck and now I was literally back in the game. Just seeing all of the Pokémon in 3D on a proper portable console invoked the expected reaction. 

 Not much else to say except it was the game I needed at the right time, sometimes you can come home again. Except for now when Nintendo, game deal or whoever decided to do what they did with Pokémon Home, absolutely unforgivable!

 2014 however was a rough year for me personally. This was the year that I finished my one year game design course at the New York Film academy and started to get into the real world. I didn’t have a job for months so until that came around I had quite a bit of time on my hands. And after the emotional roller coaster I needed a pick me up and Studio Ghibli and Level 5 gave me that with Ni No Kuni, Wrath of the White Witch. It’s a cliche to say that certain video games are like playing an interactive movie, but it’s true Ni No Kuni gives you the chance to play an actual Studio Ghibli movie with all the tropes, proper hand drawn art style and the whimsy, wonder and magic that comes with it. 

 Now as much as I love this game I do have some problems with it. Actually completing the game is an absolute nightmare with getting all the Familiars, creating all the items from the Genie, fighting the super boss and completing the Solosseum was just too much for me to bear back then. Speaking of the Familiars I was not a big fan of that, you’re supposed to be a newly minted Wizard with your new companions yet you have little monsters to do all the work for you, sounds pretty weak to me. Completion problems aside this game and Studio Ghibli remind us that sometimes it’s always darkest before dawn, even if Miyazaki himself can be a grumpy asshole.

 2015 was one of the tougher years to pick out though that was mostly due to the lack of games that I was interested in. But there was one game that I was waiting for, the conclusion to the Arkham trilogy; Batman Arkham Knight. While I did have a fun time getting to be the Goddamn Batman one last time before my opinion of Warner Bros withered and died like the Joker. That was mostly due to me playing the PS4 version while PC users were treated to a buggy, broken disaster. Also if you knew anything about Batman history you knew who the Arkham Knight was as soon as you heard him talk.

 Now funny enough apparently the Arkham Knight caught on with someone at DC since there’s an actual Arkham Knight in the comics now. Now before you say anything, no the Arkham Knight in the comics is not Jason Todd. Back on track Arkham Knight wasn’t the only problem since Scarecrow was a boring, droning putz who took himself way too seriously. But thankfully we had the surprise inclusion of the Joker with Mark Hamill’s second to last performance as the clown prince of crime before the bellyflop that was The Killing Joke. As the conclusion to the trilogy that helped repair the reputation of Superhero games it was satisfactory but Warner Bros and WB have burned too many bridges with me to give their games another chance, and that's truly a shame.

 Speaking of licenses in 2016 we got the brilliant return of Ratchet and Clank on the PS4. Now while I never saw the movie that the game was apparently tied into (and from what I heard that was for the best) this reboot got most of what made Ratchet and Clank work right gameplay wise. The game had the proper mix of platforming, gunplay, puzzle solving and a good bit of humor in the writing. I would complain about how Ratchet and Clanks early dynamic was off from how it was originally but since this was being told from Captain Quarks perspective (aka the most unreliable of narrators) I can let it slide since he most likely didn’t pay attention to those parts. Though that does bring up a bit of a problem with that excuse; namely. 

 Plot wise this was a remake of the first game only with Dr Nefarious added in as the evil scientist working for Chairman Drek. Sure, while we didn’t re-explore every planet from the first game it did expand on some of the smaller details on the planets that we do revisit. From what I can gather the movie seems to have the same problem that the Warcraft movie suffered from, namely being too faithful to the source material that it forgets to create a story that it appeals to others outside of the established fan base. But again that’s just what I’ve heard, I could be wrong. Regardless of the movies failings the game itself is a good introduction point to the new fans while being a great trip down memory lane for the old fans. It definitely makes a better showcase for the PS4 than Knack that’s for certain.

 Now before I made my pick for 2017 I initially thought that it would be Persona 5, since it was one of my most anticipated games this generation. But when I finally played the Switch rerelease last year and knowing the development history; I have to name Cuphead as my favorite game of 2017, at least retroactively. Now since Cuphead DLC was included in Smash Bros one can assume most people know about Cuphead through research and pop culture osmosis; bit you know what they say about assuming so here’s the rundown. Cuphead is a hard as nails 2d side scrolling boss rush game in the same vein as Alien Solder on the SNES. It was made by two brothers who remortgaged their houses to keep the project alive and to capture the feel of the Fleischer cartoon style they did the animation for every character by hand! 

 Let me repeat, they put their livelihoods on the line to get their uncompromised game out into the world. Now add on the fact that Cuphead was so critically and commercially received that the game now stands among the ranks of Shovel Knight and FNAF as one of the icons of the indie game market and that would have been enough but for it to be just so damn fun and challenging with era appropriate music, creative and challenging bosses and all for at 20 bucks sets it leaps and bounds over any other game in 2017. If you haven’t played Cuphead you need to rectify that ASAP!

 Now 2018 had the exact opposite problem of 2015 for me to pick the best game since there was so many candidates I could have picked if my runners up for that year were any indication. But my ultimate pick for 2018 was the PS4 Spider-Man. Just like the Arkham games you truly got to be Spider-Man, but unlike the overexposed, multimillionaire Goddamn Batman who constantly drones on about how he touched his dead mother's breast, Spider-Man’s entire premise is being relatable to the observer. Though that’s what my draw to this game is since, honestly I can’t stand 616 Peter Parker. Mostly attributed to One More Day Into The Spider-verse also showed how 616 Peter’s life is a complete and utter train wreck not helped by the writers constantly trying to put him into the “escapist fantasy” box and other people who have the name of Spider-Man just carry it better than him, like Gwen Stacy, Miguel O’Hara, Dr Octopus and yes even Miles Morales are all just better than main universe Peter. 

 But in this game we have a similar Peter Parker but thankfully not an exact copy. He has a better relationship with the NYPD, Mary Jane knows his secret identity but their relationship is on the rocks and spoilers; this Peter Parker takes the “great responsibility” part seriously when he didn’t waste the antidote to the Devils Breath on Aunt May before it could be mass produced. That moment is what cinched it for me, because I knew that main Peter Parker would be that big of a selfish, shortsighted idiot to put Aunt May over everyone in New York if the whole deal with Mephisto was enough of an indication. Spider aside the gameplay here is some of the best I’ve come across in a long time. Sure the combat system may take a few notes from the Arkham games such as the spider sense but unlike the detective vision it’s not game breaking nor does the combat system guarantee a block by pressing a button; it still relies on your skills as a player. 

 Also yes, THE WEB-SWINGING IS THE G.O.A.T! Just the feeling of swinging around New York climbing to the top of Avengers Tower and free falling into the concrete jungle down below and swinging around like an urban Tarzan was just downright magical. But then again these are the guys behind Ratchet and Clank and they know how to make a fun and entertaining game through and through. If you haven’t played this gem, rectify that immediately!

 Now to wrap this up we have the one game that several of us were waiting 13 years for, 2019 finally gave us Kingdom Hearts 3. Now did this game have some problems when it came out regarding the difficulty, yes. Did the story wrap up the Xehanort saga while still having Tetsuya Nomura’s less beloved little writing quirks such as sequel baiting, leaving some parts of the story unexplained or not explained well enough that a whole new set of DLC was released to retcon those parts, yes. Did this game still capture that feeling of childhood wonder, excitement and hopefulness even if you’re not a major fan of most of the Disney worlds, yes. Did this game draw out the ire of some of the worst parts of the gaming community for various reasons, sadly yes. 

 But no matter what anyone says about this game at least Square recognized the criticism and actually did something about it with the free Critical Mode update and the (sadly overpriced in my humble opinion) Re:Mind DLC. Whereas most other companies would have just left it and forget it to drive their reputations into the ground “cough Gearbox” “cough Bethesda” “cough Warner Brothers.” Now as a game KH3 is still a fun old time, though in my experience Proud mode was a bit too easy and Critical Mode took this game from zero to Cuphead in just a few Megabytes which was fine with me and at least you can unlock the Oblivion Keyblade by finishing Critical so there’s that. Now while KH2 is my overall favorite game in the series KH3 as of the Re:Mind DLC is a very close second.  So that wraps up my list of the favorite games of the decade per year. 

 From the end of the PS3, the failure of the Wii U, the end of Steam Greenlight to the rise of the loot box and its subsequent need for regulation to the mistake that was the Stadia and the constant disaster of Fallout 76. From the birth of both the PS4 and, honestly the best console so far the Switch; video games have had a rather interesting and turbulent ten years. Now speaking of Decade; since we’re in the Reiwa era now I have to give my thoughts on the last of the Hesei era of Kamen Rider. If this list didn’t kill me than the next one will, oh well I beat Cuphead, The Valkyrie Queen on Give me a Challenge and Yozora on Critical within the span of three months. Bring it on!

Shin Megami Tensei Strange Journey is owned by Atlus, Sega and Lancarse.
Silent Hill Downpour is owned by Vatra games and Konami Computer Entertainment
Persona 4 Golden is owned by Atlus and Sega.
Rick and Morty is owned by Justin Rolland, Dan Harmon, Justin Roiland's Solo Vanity Card Productions, Harmonious Claptrap, Starburns Industries, and Williams Street
Pokémon is owned by Nintendo, Game Freak, Ken Sugumori and Statoshi Tajiri.
Ratatouille is owned by Walt Disney Pictures, Pixar Animation Studios and Brad Bird.
Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch is owned by Level-5 Games, Studio Ghibli and Namco Bandai.
Batman Arkham Knight is owned by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, Rocksteady Studios and DC Comics
Ratchet and Clank is owned by Insomniac Games and Sony Computer Entertainment.
Dragon Ball, Dragonball Z, Dragonball GT and Dragonball Super is owned by Funnimation, Toei animation, Fuji TV and Akira Toriyama.
Dragon ball Z Abridged is owned by Team Four Star. 
Cuphead is owned by Studio MDHR and Chad and Jared Moldenhauer.
Kingdom Hearts is owned by Square Enix, Disney Interactive Studios, Tetsuya Nomura, and Shinji Hashimoto.

Tokusatsu Review: Kamen Rider Heisei Generations Forever Part 2: Itty bitty brain space

When you're done read, comment, spread the links, re-tweet and follow me on Twitter @OnDavidsBrain!, support me on Patreon and watch my Twitch Channel Every Saturday at 12:00 ET

 Well, we've had ourselves a nice little break haven't we? Now it's back to work covering how this movie blows chunks, yay. After Sento states the obvious we cut back to Tiddlywinks's hide out where his Another Riders bring him Shingo. Next is the three stooges finding Kazumi's unconscious body in front of Ataru's house. Yet Ataru didn't think to call an ambulance for the guy bleeding out in front of his house who tried to save him and the little kid from the monster working for a psychopath?

 But something seems wrong as when Sento asks where Shingo is Ataru thinks that they're talking about his older brother. Yet after Sougo clarifies that they were talking about the kid they still don't think that something is wrong. Look I'm done waiting for the movie to drop the other shoe and I'm not going to insult your intelligence by going along with their poorly constructed foreshadowing any longer, Shingo is Ataru's time displaced brother. For reasons that will be explained later Tiddlywinks abducted him before Ataru was born which was one day before the premiere of Kuuga. This explains why they both have the same name, why Shingo only knows about Kuuga and how he's never seen a smartphone before when this movie takes place in 2018 and every kid who has even heard of one has racked up at least $1000 dollars on their parents phone playing Angry Birds.

 Now we get to the part where we learn how Ataru caused all of this in the first place, brace yourselves and have buckets on stand by for when you either have an aneurysm or your brains are reduced to Yogurt! He invites Sento and Sougo inside and shows them his room, which is full of Kamen Rider figurines and merchandise. You name it it's there, there's drivers, posters, festival masks, toys, figurines you name it it's most likely there. After the non reaction from our two heroes after they learn about how their lives are only fiction Ataru explains how they got to his world in the first place. See Ataru comes from the real world, where Kamen Rider is just a T.V show yet one day he gets possessed by an Imagin who grants his wish to be able to see real Kamen Riders.

 I repeat, an Imagin, from Kamen Rider Den-O, shows up, in the real world, to grant Ataru's wish!

 First off, if Kamen Riders are not real in your world, there's no way in hell that there should be an Imagin there to grant your wish. Second, Imagins are not that powerful. Sure they're based off of the Djinn which is the basis of Genies, but like the original Djinn, Imagins don't have the phenomenal cosmic power that was ascribed to them from works like the Disney version of Aladdin but are more depicted as they were originally portrayed, as spirits summoned by someone to carry out a task. In other words, they could only grant a wish that was within normal parameters such as "get revenge on this guy for me," "bring me millions of dollars," wishes like that, usually through twisted and violent ways. But this new Imagin (he goes unnamed through out the movie but the wiki says that he's named Futaros) is just somehow able to merge worlds together to grant this wish, even though no Imagin before this has that kind of reality merging power, not even the Death Imagin, the strongest Imagin in Den-O.

 And then with Ataru telling them that none of this matters since this is all his dream and that once he wakes up nothing will have happened that's strike 3 and this guy is out. So why did he even do this in the first place? Because he just wants to forget his reality where his parents focused on his 7 year old older brother Shingo disappearing thanks to Tiddlywinks and thought that the Riders would help him. Sento, after rightfully chewing him out for thinking that this was just nothing but his delusions has had enough and walks out with Sougo not too far behind. Now, allow a clown to be serious for a few seconds, because there are several things I find wrong with this scene on both a storytelling level and philosophical level.

 First let's get the storytelling out of the way because trust me the philosophical side can get pretty juicy. I mainly have issues with the revelations and the characters reaction, or in this case lack of reaction in the scene. We have a set up where people who thought that their lives were real turns out to be in fact, fictitious. There are many ways and stories that touch on and experiment with this concept whether it be for a deconstruction of the agency of viewers interaction with the work or creators commenting on the nature of the meta narrative. Such examples include The Stanley Parable, Princess Tutu or most prominently in my mind, Grant Morrisons run on Animal Man.

 Each of these works touch on the agency of a creation in their fictional world. Now of course I'm not saying that every story that has these ideas has to be some grand philosophical treatise on the meta narrative and creation being ruled by the creator; this idea can also be used for poking fun at the 4th wall like Deadpool, the Rocky and Bullwinkle movie and Doki Doki Literature club. But what I'm getting at is that these works took this idea and actually did something with it. But in this movie, nothing is done with this concept. It's just casually tossed in as an afterthought explanation to justify the inconsistencies of the original setting, in. my opinion this is lazy, thoughtless and wasteful.

 But now we come to the probable intent of this scene, why the creators thought to include this in the first place. Now, after thinking long and hard about this scene I'm actually reminded of something. Back in the 200th Episode of Atop the 4th Wall Linkara reviewed Spider-Man One More Day, in issue three of that story Peter encounters an overweight alternate universe version of himself who went on a tirade deriding the entire concept of escapist fiction. Considering who was involved in the creation of that story, combined with the fact that issues 3 and 4 of that story were heavily rewritten he incorrectly assumed that Joe Quesada was responsible for that scene. It was later revealed that while the rewrites were a thing, most of issue 3 was written as intended by J Michael Straczynski.

 How it was written could easily be seen as a message of contempt to people who indulge in escapist fiction. The overweight Peter could easily be seen as a stand-in for JMS calling the audience failures for ignoring the real world, or him venting his frustration of having to toss all of his years of work on Spider-Man out the window to appease Quesada. But having gone through the scene and given the context of the story I could see this as the overweight Peter telling Spider-Man that while he never got the spider bite and couldn't be a hero in the spandex and cape sense, 616 Peter, as Spider-Man can do so much more good. Though Tubby is ignoring the fact that there's more ways of being someone's hero then the cape and cowl routine, like working in a soup kitchen, helping a homeless person get back on their feet, or even just giving someone reassurance, comfort and hope when all seems hopeless. So yeah like most versions of Peter Parker, he's kind of a fucking idiot.

 But back on track, unlike Quesada and JMS the two working on this movie; Shinichiro Shirakura and Kento Shimoyama have constant track records consisting of critically paned work, and in Shirakura's case; excessive meddling and distain towards the Tokusatsu fandom. Given this and Shirakura's hands on approach towards the productions he helms I can safely assume that he's responsible for this scene.

 And he's clearly telling the fans of Kamen Rider that they're delusional, sociopathic cowards for indulging in this series. You know, the series that is a long standing Japanese cultural icon for decades, the series that he's a producer of, one of the properties that is responsible for the roof over his head, the food in his gut and the clothes on his back?! He's basically saying "the people who watch this franchise and buy my crap are losers so keep buying my crap losers!" Now while I don't have a clip of Linkara giving that spiteful ramble towards JMS (accidentally to the guy who didn't even want to do that story in the first place) I do have a clip that hopefully conveys the message to Shirakura all the same.

 I honestly should end this review right here, but sadly no, there's still much more to come. Anyway, after Sento's departure Futaros asks whether this is enough since he's draining himself to keep the Riders here and apparently this is the reason why they are losing their memories. Now that Tiddlywinks has Shingo he gets started on both creating his perfect world and his perfect Kefka impression. First by doing an insane laugh that would make Mark Hamel blush, then he summons a giant castle out of nowhere in the middle of Tokyo.

And he can do all of this because don't question it or else you'll be kicked in the head by a horse!

 Oh and as if that wasn't enough he literally makes it rain and then sends an army of Grunts into the city to kill everyone in their path. Sento and Sougo notice the giant eyesore and agree that fictional or otherwise, they have to stop Tiddlywinks' plans. Ataru finally notices what his actions have caused and after being chased by an Inves, Ghoul and Roidmude and finding that Kazumi has lost his memories decides that enough is enough and tells Futaros that the contract is fulfilled allowing him to assume his full Imagin from and fight off the Grunts before jumping through Ataru completing the contract. But with said contract completed the Riders return to their world leaving the "real world" at the mercy of Tiddlywinks and his army. As Sougo witnesses Futaros traveling back in time he returns to his world with Woz watching him sleep like the zealous creep that he is.

 After he explains everything to Woz, Sento finds him and tells him about the photo he found at Ataru's house and the two twits finally figure out what anyone who was watching this movie and didn't huff paint as a kid figured out half an hour ago. But now that they know the score how are they getting back to stop Tiddlywinks? They use the W Ridewatch that's how! I'll get into my thoughts about that later right now it's BS time. After the trio travel though Hypertime apparently they land back in the "real world" where the minions are racking up a major kill count.

 Sougo and Woz manage to find Ataru, Woz then oh lord give me strength, accesses the Gaia Library to fill Sougo in on how the Imagin operate and then pulls out a Rider Ticket out of nowhere to figure out where Futaros went!?

 That's it, I need a break there's only so much I can take. See you next week for my final thoughts on the movie and even more things wrong with it. Someone get me a Diet Coke!!!

Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.

Kamen Rider is owned by Ishinomori Productions, Toei Productions, and Bandai.
Back to the Future is owned by Robbert Zebecks, Bob Gale, Stephen Spielberg, Ambling Entertainment  and Universal Studios.
See no Evil, Hear no Evil is owned by Tristar Pictures and Arthur Hiller.
Half Baked is owned by Universal Pictures, Robert Simonds Productions and Tamra Davis.

Movie Review: Shazam: Holy Moley (Spoilers)

When you're done read, comment, spread the links, re-tweet and follow me on Twitter @OnDavidsBrain!, support me on Patreon and watch my Twitch Channel Every Saturday at 12:00 ET

 I’ve made little to no secret that I prefer the Marvel Cinematic Universe over the DCEU. But I do recognize that there have been some good movies associated with this franchise. Wonder Woman was a landmark film in various ways, from being the first successful female superhero movie to being a milestone for female directors. Though while I haven’t seen Aquaman I have heard that its reception was at least mixed to good. On top of that with James Gunn still working on Suicide Squad 2 before going back to Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 that film could turn out to be an entertaining ride too.

 Not to mention the upcoming Joaquin Phoenix Joker movie seems to be just the thing to get the taste of Jared Leto out of everyone’s mouth. Overall it seems that DC is getting back on track due to shifting the tone away from Zach Snyder’s original vision after Batman V Superman became a critically panned nightmare on top of the hodgepodge mess that was Justice League after he understandably left the project after a horrible family tragedy and directing duties were left to Joss Whedon. Now let me be clear, what happened to Mr Snyder and his family was indeed a horrible, terrible tragedy and I’m not saying that the circumstances behind his departure were in anyway a good thing. But the fact is that no matter how one feels about his situation before or after said tragedy there is an undeniable shift in quality for the DCEU after he left the project.

 But that could just as easily be attributed to DC overall getting out of its edge-lord, dark and gritty 90’s relapse that was the New 52. Once the New 52 launched there was a general sense of everything attached to the DC comics line trying to be darker, more bleak and wanting to be taken seriously. But really it just came off as DC repeatedly screaming this at the top of their lungs.

 But after the Event Comic Convergence and the aforementioned departure of Mr Snyder DC seems to be going for a much more optimistic depiction of their superhero line. Which finally brings us to the topic at hand, the cinematic debut of Billy Batson, aka Captain Marvel aka Captain Thunder aka Shazam, Earth’s mightiest mortal. Yeah, copyright is more then a tad silly. But before I give my thoughts here’s Linkara with how Billy originally came to be from all the way back in the Golden Age. 

 The differences here is that Billy wasn’t out on the streets, his uncle is not only removed from this continuity but also there was no fortune he screwed Billy out of and as for Dr Sivana, well I'll get into the changes made to him later. Now the Billy in this movie isn’t exactly the big Red Boy-scout that he was pre New-52 nor is he the New-52 annoying brat with a chip on his shoulder the size of the rock of eternity. No he’s more like how you’d expect a kid with a rough background and a heart of gold to act if he got superpowers. This incarnation starts out not with Billy but the aforementioned Sivana as a young boy being tested by the wizard Shazam (played by Djimon Hounsou) to see if he’s worthy of becoming the successor. However the young Sivana is tempted by the seven deadly sins and is found not worthy, leaving a young Sivana wanting revenge. 

 Cut to present day where we find Billy (played by Asher Angel) trying to find his mother but is instead coming up with nothing but more paragraphs on his juvie sheet. He’s finally taken in by a family that’s willing to put up with him where he meets Freddy Freeman (played by Jack Dylan Grazer) who’s a fanboy of the new heroes popping up including Superman and Batman. After Billy saves Fred at school from two brats that were beating the ever-loving tar out of him he boards the subway train and is taken to Shazam who bequeathes him his powers. Not because he’s worthy but after an adult Sivana (played by Mark Strong) finds his way back, frees the seven sins to intact his revenge and kicks the old mans ass, he basically ran out of options. So now Billy can turn into an adult with the skills of several mythical figures (played by Zachary Levi) which he can switch between at will, hijinks ensue.

 If I had to make a comparison for this film it would like “Big” with superpowers. But unlike Toqger which failed in this concept almost entirely this movie seems to zig where Toqger zagged. First in that the main lead isn't an insufferable idiot that the world bends over backwards to make right when everything says he should be wrong and that when he screws up he gets called out on it. Second is that when that Billy matures as the story progresses its because of natural character development and not that the audience got sick of the leads acting like five years olds as opposed to their actual ages. Third is that unlike Zett who was forced into his position as the ultimate villain because the writer's negative view of the entire concept of rebellion; Sivana's actions are all of his own accord and through his own actions we can clearly see why he was unworthy.

 Speaking of Sivana it's time for me to get off the Toqger hate train again to talk about how he was portrayed. Apparently during the production of this movie the main villain was supposed to be Black Atom played by Dwayne Johnson. While that was put on the shelf for now there seems to be some influence of that original draft with Sivana. Normally Sivana is a mad scientist (hell he's the archetype for the trope as far as I know) but here; he has powers on par with the Big Red Cheese. I'm not saying that's a problem I just felt it a bit weird and eventually redundant since if they're going ahead with Black Adam why would they do this type of villain again?

 I mean granted here Sivana is powered by the seven sins and we already have foreshadowing of Black Adam when Shazam gives the speech to Billy but they've already done the "dark mirror" villain with Sivana here so why do it again with Black Adam? But other then that Sivana was just fine in this movie, taking a bit too much of a queue from the MCU villain handbook but he does get more backstory and screen time than most of them so it evens out. The supporting characters were decent as well, aka Billy's foster family. They get an equal amount of screen time and the acting is on point, especially for the Billy's new siblings. Save for Mary, maybe it was just me but Grace Fulton's acting seemed to be a bit wooden.

 Not terrible or anything but it felt like she needed a few more takes to get her delivery down. Also I felt that Eugene and Pedro could have used a bit more screen time but hey that's what sequels are for. Also, the final fight scene, I knew it was coming after the kids were introduced but not that soon and not as awesome as it was, bravo. Speaking of, that post credit scene, I can't wait to see not only how they pull that off but make us take something like that seriously. But all in all Shazam is another good sign that DC's movies are recovering after four controversial wastes of time, not as good as Wonder Woman but hey, it's a good start.

Shazam is owned by New Line Cinema, DC Films, The Safran Company, and Mad Ghost Productions, based off of the character created by Bill Parker and C.C Beck.
The Lonely Island is owned by Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone.

Tokusatsu Review: Uchu Sentai Kyuuranger vs Space Squad Part 2: Evil will always triumph, because good is dumb.

When you're done read, comment, spread the links, re-tweet and follow me on Twitter @OnDavidsBrain!, support me on Patreon and watch my Twitch Channel Every Saturday at 12:00 ET

 Welcome back to my last written review of 2018 everybody. Yeah sorry but this is the time of the year for friends (the few I still have), family (the ones I actually want to affiliate myself with) and making sure both groups don't kill each other over petty nonsense by pacifying them with material goods. Though in all seriousness this has been a busy year for me and I need a bit of a break. Besides I need to catch everyone up on Kingdom Hearts before the big day comes next month so I'll be dedicating myself to posting the rest of my LP of Birth By Sleep. So now to wrap up the adventures of Dumbluck and his gang of stooges. Here's the link to last time, now to get this party started.

https://ondavidsbrain.blogspot.com/2018/11/tokusatsu-review-uchu-sentai-kyuuranger.html

 So after Dumbluck, Robo Bison and Pine Tree showed us how little they actually know about how the world works, and Shuu gets a good sniff of Bootleg Spock after sniffing Tsurugi's female secretary, the guy must collect restraining orders like Yu-gi-oh cards. Everybody is brooding over this whole situation while Spiro is still incapacitated, he could really use either a Spa day or surgery. Dumbluck and his group meet up with Luigi Mario where they surprisingly encounter Spyro who tells the four to look after Yera and that the enemy is going to attack the Neo Kyuutama production facility, yeah I know what's happening but just let those in the back of the class figure it out for themselves. Tsurugi even gets a message from Demost about the same attack. Sure enough Yera's there and ambushed by Tsurugi, Sasuke Clone #3472, Kurumi, Bootleg and Josuk3PO.

 But before they can catch her, get her to a safe location and figure out what the hell is going on, the moron brigade show up, transform and fight with Tsurugi, Sasuke and Kurumi. Dumbluck even gets back up from Leman Russ, but even Dumbluck didn't want him involved in this since he has a family to look after, but nope Bros before hoes and pups I guess, god when even Dumbluck can see that that was a stupid idea, just, ugh. Anyway it's 5 on 3 with Yera still refusing to explain herself while Demost is watching and putting the finishing touches by performing a Jutsu. While back at the fight Spyro shows up again gets caught in a sword clash between Dumbluck and Tsurugi making things 1000 times worse, so what does Yera do while her friends and teammates are killing each other? She runs away like a fucking coward!

 Even Mele tries to call her out on her bullcrap when Shuu intervenes and starts another fight/ flirting session with her. Then the three are attacked by Spyro forcing Mele into her monster form. He tells Yera the exact wrong thing to resolve this situation and Mele uses her chameleon powers to escape with Yera. Back with the moron's fighting Gavan finally shows up and manages to defuse the situation. However Demost knows that Gavan is in the neighborhood and is now on a major time crunch.

 Now here's where we finally learn why Yera is doing all of this, Demost approached her pretending to be be from her Ninja clan and tells her he wants to help her resurrect her master who was killed by Jark Matter by getting the Neo Kyuutamas. So she was willing to trust the words of an obviously evil looking space ninja who says that he can help her bring back her dead master. Do I need to tell you all how stupid this is? I mean do I need to repeat my joke from my recap of Lupinranger vs Patranger, actually yes I will! Unless you're using the Dragonballs resurrections tend to go pear shaped really fast!

Unless Yera really hated her master for some reason and only wants her to suffer as an undead abomination.

Or as an unborn demon that can't even beg for death.

Or to use a more recent example, be resurrected as part of a Zombie Pop idol group for the as of yet unknown purposes of an eccentric asshole as part of a poignant social commentary about how fucked up the Japanese Pop Idol industry is!

 Also no, this isn't a trick of Demost, her master really is still alive, how, why these are questions the movie doesn't feel like answering. Moving on Geki and Shuu catch up and give some advice to Dumbluck and Tsurugi. We also have some scenes about "how are we going to get over something like this" that I've seen handled way better in Persona 3 The Answer so just play that then listen to this tripe. The only important thing to come out of this sequence is that Yera tries to leave Demost but he shows his true colors and fatally wounds Mele for their little heart to heart talk that lead her to get a clue in her head. But Demost shows Yera that her master is alive and he'll kill her again if she doesn't follow his orders.

 His true goal is to conquer this universe as an offering to Fumein and the only thing that stands in his way is the Kyurangers. That's why he even approached her in the first place, and to further drive the wedge between the team he used his Jutsu to disguise himself as Spyro while the real Spyro is still in the hospital. Now for his master plan to destroy the Kyurangers, he'll have Yera kill Tsurugi and to make sure she gets the job done he sends Basco, Juzo and Escape to oversee the operation and kill anyone who gets in the way. Speaking of Tsurugi in a press conference he announces his resignation as President of the galactic Federation. Yera tries to make her move but she just can't go through with it, so Escape does the dumbest thing possible and fires on her, blowing their cover and sending the entire crowd panicking with Basco and Juzo being cornered by the other Kyurangers and fighting back in their monster forms.

 But enough of that it's time to see where Demost was hiding the whole time. He was actually disguised as Tsurugi's female aid, having killed the real one in her apartment. Bootleg and Josuk3PO were sent by Shuu to investigate when he noticed the same perfume smell on both the aid and Bootleg from when Demost had him in a headlock in their earlier encounter. Now that the jig is up, Yera's master is safe and Demost finally kills Mele for her betrayal the 11 Kyuuurangers and Space Sheriffs work together to defeat Demost and put Basco, Juzo and Escape back in the ground. Actually it's not all that clear because even though Demost was defeated he wasn't killed so how does him getting beat up a bit lead to the three that he resurrected go back to being dead? Oh whatever the film's almost over, with Yera's master safe and Demost in Shuu and Geki's custody the Metal Heroes finally go back to their home universe and we'll never have to hear from Dumbluck and his goons again until we unfortunately have to deal with their team up movie with both the Lupinrangers and the Patrangers.

 So to wrap up the Space Sheriffs apologize to Jiraya for nearly killing himself keeping the portal open. But he doesn't care about that as another of the 12 Apostles of Genmakuu is out and is a pyromaniac as apparently he's been running around a planet and setting fires to skyscrapers, the latest one having killed 900 people! So we get the tease of the next Metal Hero that Geki will be working with, Fire AKA Ryouma Kagawa from Tokkei Winspector. So that was Kyuranger Vs Space Squad and spoilers like anything involving Kyuuranger it sucked like a Quantum Singularity. Though I fully admit that I have a major bias against this movie since Kyuuragner was as of this date the only Super Sentai that I ever gave up watching when it first premiered, the characters pissed me off that much. 

 That aspect is still carried over to this movie, Dumbluck is still insufferable and most of the core Kyuurangers are still as one note as when I last saw them. The only ones I don't have an issue with is Pine Tree and Tsurugi since they showed up after I quit the show and thus have nothing to be angry about with them. Another point of contention that I have is with the resurrected villains, most of whom cannot be resurrected due to their nature as AI in Escapes case and the reincarnation with Mele. Now I'm guessing that that the actors for these characters were the only ones available and the producers just didn't care so, meh whatever it was at least nice to see Basco back. Though the cynical side of me is telling me that the only reason why they even brought back past villains like this was to draw in the fans of those shows because they know that Kyuranger was a ratings disaster and were desperate to get anyone to watch this movie.

 Speaking of desperate it was painfully obvious that with the split team dynamic that Toei was trying to ape Captain America Civil War. But again they only copied the superficial aspects of what made it work. Now sometimes when Toei does this it can work, most prominently when they copied Twilight with Kamen Rider Kiva, they only used the "Vampires who sparkle" thing and that was thankfully it. But here, it just makes you want to see Civil War again. Honestly the only way I would recommend this is for the Space Squad ongoing story as it shows how Demost was defeated and sets up the Winspector team up for next time. 

 Now that this review is finally done with I can get on with a bit of a well deserved break for the holidays. And by that I mean I'll be focusing on my personal art, streams and Lets Plays until I feel the review itch again sometime after the New Year. So be sure to stick around for not only the rest of my Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep Lets Play but also my end of the year recap. Till then, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanza, Happy Holidays and good cheer to all.

Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.

Super Sentai is owned by Ishinomori Productions, Toei Productions, and Bandai.
Metal Heroes is owned by Toei Company.
Solomon Grundy is owned by DC Comics, created by Alfred Bester and Paul Reinman
Fullmetal Alchemist is owned by Studio Bones, Square-Enix, Funimation, Viz Media and Hiromu Arakawa.
Zombieland Saga is owned by MAPPA, Megumu Soramichi, Crunchyroll and Funimation.

Personal Post: Top 10 monsters in fiction I can’t take seriously Part 1

When you're done read, comment, spread the links, re-tweet and follow me on Twitter @OnDavidsBrain!, support me on Patreon and watch my Twitch Channel Every Saturday at 12:00 ET

 Yep ghosts and ghouls it’s that time of the year again for monster malarkey. Last year I talked about some of my favorite monsters, from their designs to the personalities and backstories I just loved most of them. Now this year is where I go the polar opposite, and let me tell you this is going to be the hardest list. Mostly due to me not really encountering a whole lot of monsters that really bore me or I honestly just point and laugh at. Like last year, one monster per franchise, have to have actually seen them and state why I find them so hard to take seriously.

#10 Chucky from Childs Play

 I believe that everyone is familiar with the possessed toy idea. It’s a good one when done right but in the case of Charles Lee Ray it tends to vary depending on what movie he’s in. Charles is a serial killer who just so happens to be a practitioner of Voodoo (not real voodoo but just roll with it.) One night he gets shot by a cop and his only chance of survival is to transfer his soul into a nearby doll. But he wants a real body so throughout the series he plans to transfer his soul into a new human body so he can resume his spree.

 The first movie was just fine but as it went on things just got more and more ridiculous to the point where you can’t take him seriously at all. I mean when you show up on WWE, you know any real credibility is flushed down the crapper. I believe that everyone that hasn’t checked out of this franchise with Bride of Chucky, they would have with Seed of Chucky. Some horror franchises have the potential to last a long time. But for Chucky the killer doll I believe that once was more then enough, so yes I did just fuck with the chuck and what’s he gonna do about it?

Yeah that's what I thought.

#9 Necron from FF9

 For those who don’t know I’m not the biggest fan of Final Fantasy. I’ve played a few of them and they’re just not for me. But the one I can definitely claim to be my favorite is undoubtedly Final Fantasy 9. With the technical innovation of the PS1 era engine combined with a classic, uncomplicated story, fantastical setting, likable characters and solid (but too easy and some what BS; looking at you Trance system) combat system it’s an underrated classic of the series. However the final boss, for me is the crack in the otherwise finely crafted gem of a game. 

 So far the major villain is Kuja, the fabulous homunculus who has been trying to destroy both the worlds of Terra and Gaia in an act of spiteful and mad vengeance against the wishes of his creator Garland. Zidane and his party manage to reach him and defeat him but it’s not the end. Suddenly this flying blue monster comes right out of nowhere and is all like “hey I’m the final boss now, deal with it!” We have absolutely no idea where this guy came from, what his motivations are, nothing is established about him or what he’s even here for. It’s like he just came in from a completely different game just to mess up this one. 

 Say what you will about Yu Yevon from FF 10 in terms of being a final boss and believe me there's a lot to say how much of a horrible final boss it is. But at least Yu Yevon was established and has actual relevance to the story of FF 10. Necron on the other hand literally comes out of nowhere. It’s not enough to ruin FF9 for be but Necron was basically the final boss version of a big lipped alligator moment.

#8 Dream Eaters from Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance

 Yet another enemy type for Kingdom Hearts that aren’t Heartless because the design, Nomura and plot said so. Say what you will about the Nobodies and the Unversed but at least they had plot relevance to their games. The Nobodies are the leftover Body and Soul left behind when strong person’s heart becomes a Heartless and the Unversed are the manifestation of Vanitas’ negative emotions (for the most part, looking at you Symphony Master, Cursed Coach and Spirit of the Magic Mirror.) But the Dream Eaters only serve as party members and enemies for Sora and Riku to respectively party with and fight during their mark of mastery exam in the dream worlds. Apparently they’re just the manifestations of Darkness in the sleeping worlds since they’re cut off from all outside channels, apparently not even the Heartless can get into them, ignoring that we encounter Ansem, Xemnas and Xigbar during our time there but whatever.

 I mean yeah the Spirit Dream Eaters are necessary to party with and unlock new abilities. But aside from that and being cute little battle brothers they’re just a gimmick to take advantage of the 3DS and PS4’s touch screen controls and that’s about it. Plot wise the Nightmares don’t even do anything different that couldn’t have been filled by a Heartless. Let’s see, the Heartless were gathering hearts to create Kingdom Hearts for Xehanort’s incarnations, the Nobodies serve Organization XIII to gain hearts of their own and the Unversed were used by Vanitas to lure Ven, Terra and Aqua away, make Terra and Ven stronger for their eventual parts in Xehanort’s plan and are extensions of Vanitas himself. The Dream Eaters have nothing in terms of plot relevancy, just glorified Pokémon knockoffs and that’s it, sorry little dudes you're cute and all, but that's about it see you in Kingdom Hearts 3.

#7 The Mummy (2017)

 These days cinematic universes are the big gimmick that Hollywood wants to cash in on. Aside from the MCU that took several years of planing, preparation and let’s face it prayer before they got Iron Man out the door, everyone else who tried this formula rushed it out the door or assigned the absolute wrong person to set the tone for their universes and the results were complete disasters. The Mummy was the result of the former instead of the latter. Universal tried to revive the original cinematic universe with the classic movie monsters. Their first and last attempt was a second reboot of the Mummy and you know it's a bad movie when I can take the series with The Rock as a CGI scorpion monster more seriously.

 Now say what you will about the Brendan Fraser series but it seemed to be more focused on being an action movie and doing its own thing instead of trying to reinvent the wheel. 2017 Mummy was them trying to reinvent the wheel and they wound up with a triangle. Nothing about this Mummy makes sense, from her origin, her powers, her weaknesses, motivation nothing adds up, if you try to apply the mythological inspiration or either of the previous movie incarnations, nothing adds up either. It honestly feels like they lost the original plot and instead decided to make an even worse version of Enchantress from Suicide Squad. Universals shareholders were promised their own MCU and the result was Tom Cruse with ambiguous superpowers and a zombie best buddy, enough said.

#6 Harvest #3 from DC Comics

 What a horrible waste of a good character design. I wasn’t reading Teen Titans during their New 52 iteration but thanks to Linkara’s massive review of the Crossover event “The Culling” we were all introduced to the dumbass known only as Harvest. While he did have a good look his actions and backstory are what landed this idiot on the list. Apparently he was a Colonel from the future who fought in a war against Metahumans. So he decided to go back in time to eliminate Metahumans, he decided to do this by kidnapping superpowered Teenagers, have them fight to the death and recruit the winners to his team.

 Now this is stupid for many reasons, the most pertinent of which is that why would anyone agree to work with this idiot? See when Blackbeard from One Piece did this with the Level 6 Impel Down prisoners, he wanted the strongest of the worst criminals in the world to join his crew and help him takedown Whitebeard. They were all criminals with life sentences doomed to be erased from history due to their crimes and were just as sick and depraved as he is so it makes sense why the prisoners would want to join him, not so for Teenagers who were kidnapped, forced to live in hellish conditions where they had to fight to the death for the recruiting process of the dumbass who put them there in the first place! Also when the heroes eventually fought him he kept rambling on about how he was actually a good guy for doing all of this. Which was elaborated after the Culling, too little too late, but don’t worry apparently even when his entire operation was falling apart around him is was all according to cake. 

 Even with all of the events that he couldn’t have possibly accounted for, had future knowledge or was even there for it was all part of his master plan. See when Master Xehanort did this schtick he only did it relatively sparingly and you could see how he could have planed everything out in his favor, but when Harvest does it he doesn’t come off as this grand Machiavellian schemer, he just seems like a dumbass over his head playing spin doctor! Also saving the future by kidnapping and torturing teenagers, now does that sound like a hero to you? If not then I just have one question.

 Thankfully Harvest and his nonsense seems to have been jettisoned along with everything else from the New 52 when DC Rebirth happened, good. Yeah this is starting to drag on a bit again and we have four weeks this month on top of Halloween day so I've decided to split this into two parts again. Sorry but I feel that I shouldn't drag this article out longer then it needs to. Plus I have some choices that I feel need some reconsidering and more thought. Besides I know that some of the choices that I will be making are going to have people after my blood for various reasons so I need to make some preparation for the nuclear fallout some of my top choices will bring me.

Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.

Childs Play is owned by United Artists, MGM/UA Communications Co
Final Fantasy 9 is owned by Square, Hironobu Sakaguchi and Hiroyuki Ito.
Nostalgia Critic is owned by Doug Walker and Channel Awesome.

Kingdom Hearts is owned by Square Enix, Disney Interactive Studios, Tetsuya Nomura, and Shinji Hashimoto.
The Mummy (2017) is owned by Universal Pictures, Perfect World Pictures, K/O Paper Products and Sean Daniel Company
Harvest is owned by Scott Lobdell and Brett Booth

Dragon Ball, Dragonball Z, Dragonball GT and Dragonball Super is owned by Funnimation, Toei animation, Fuji TV and Akira Toriyama.

Dragon ball Z abridged is owned by Team Four Star.

Yugioh is owned by Konami, Kazuki Takahashi, Toei Animation, Shonen Jump and Viz Media. (#FucKonami)

Yugioh Abridged is owned by Little Kuriboh (Martin Piers Billany)

Tokusatsu Review: Kamen Rider Heisei Generations Final Part 2: The boys are back in town! (Spoilers)

When you're done read, comment, spread the links, re-tweet and follow me on Twitter @OnDavidsBrain! and support me on Patreon.

 Ok here we are again with Part two of my review of Heisei Generations Final (not really Final but just shut up). Want to know what happened in Part 1? Here you go, enjoy.

http://ondavidsbrain.blogspot.com/2018/08/tokusatsu-review-kamen-rider-heisei.html

 Caught up? Good now we can get going to the good stuff, you know the stuff like on the poster right above us, yeah that stuff. We get the ball rolling with Emu finally having enough of sitting one the sidelines and decides to look for Enigma. Back in Build's Earth the titular rider is fighting off the Nebula Bugsters while Parado evacuates the nearby civilians. Eventually this draws out the blue Gear monster; Left Kaiser out of hiding and he attacks Build to keep him from destroying his Nebula Bugsters.

 Cranky Kong manages to overpower Build so he pulls out the Fullbottles Stark gave him earlier and transforms into PhoenixRobo form and regains his footing with him forcing Cranky to retreat. But thankfully Sento's smart and in the confusion placed a tracker on him. As Sento and Parado follow the signal to Cranky's hideout Sento learns the secret behind Muteki Gamer's power and it all falls into place for him, the reason why Katsuragi went after Ex-Aid and stole his power was to prepare for this scenario. He knew that Enigma would disable the Gamer Drivers so he had to refine the power of Ex-Aid into the Fullbottles so he could defeat the Nebula Bugsters and Kaisei.

 On the main Earth Takeru delivers the Build Gashats to the three remaining CR riders who can finally do some real damage against the Nebula Bugsters. Even Takeru gets in on the action, though for some stupid reason he doesn't use the Ex-Aid Eyecon that he got at the end of his series which we saw during last year's movie is more then capable of hurting Bugsters. Guessing the costume was scrapped or something stupid like that. Speaking of stupid Emu and Bank try their hardest against the Nebula Bugster but another Earthquake causes Banjo to fall into one of the worst green screen shots I've ever seen.

No this is not just a cheap Photoshop job that I did, this was seriously in the movie. How was it that Power Rangers Lost Galaxy did a similar shot yet do it much better back in 1999 then this movie did in 2017?

 Emu tries to pull Banjo up but isn't strong enough, thankfully the king of the Underpants Gnomes; Eiji Hino shows up to pull him up. After the two saves Banjo from the MST3K joke Eiji fills them in on who's behind Funky and Cranky's world merger and no it's not Shocker, Decade, Alexander Luthor nor Ouma, it's actually Foundation X. Yes apparently Toei remembered that this group exists since Shirakura wasn't involved in this movie's production so they could actually use this great idea instead of it just being Shocker for the 1000000000000000th time. Now you might be thinking "how did Foundation X learn about the Bugster virus to even infuse them with Nebula Gas for this plan?" Well for those who're in the know, during the events of the Kamen Rider Brave Special a member of Foundation X managed to get his hands on the Night of Safari Gashat, so that explains the Bugster cultivation, as for the Nebula Gas it's pretty damn obvious, Funky and Cranky are collaborating; so Build Earth Kaisei provides the Nebula Gas and Main Earth Kaisei uses Foundation X's Bugster research to merge the two components together as well as create the Kaiser systems.

 But that's enough babble time for action. Sento and Parado find Cranky's hideout while Eiji leads Emu and Banjo to Funky's base. The two groups manage to reach their respective Kongs where there's exposition and revelations abound. In Cranky's case it's that he apparently was brought into the Borg collective judging by his face being fried by Kastusragi's betrayal and that once Enigma merges the two worlds together he'll merge with his main Earth self and they'll become a god or something. But how the hell would that even work?

 That's not an explanation! I'll get back to this later but suffice to say, these two are idiots. Funky's little surprise is that he brought a few Foundation X projects with him, reproductions of four Zodiarch Astro Switches and a set of Greeed Core Metals including Ankh's (minus the purple ones obviously) which he revives and sicks on the three riders. Emu and Banjo deal with the main Greeed while Eiji gets an idea with the Dummy Ankh and inserts the real Ankh's broken main core medal into the fake allowing Ankh to temporarily regain his physical form. I say temporarily because of the events of Movie War Mega Max where Ankh came back from about 40 years in the future where he was revived completely and I don't know about you but we're not there quite yet despite what Eiji thinks. But that doesn't matter because after the revived Ankh steals a tiger and grasshopper medal from the Dummy Kazari and Uva; Eiji can transform into Kamen Rider OOO again.

 OOO frees up Emu and Banjo to deal Funky while he and his revived red bird bro finish off the Dummy Greeed and reclaim the Core Medals. Funky transforms into Right Kaiser and fights Cross-Z to a stand still, he tries to kill the two while getting away with the Zodiarch switches but the two are saved by the returning Kamen Rider Fourze. Yeah we've actually been seeing J.K and Ohsugi in the background observing all these events so far which is how he knew to show up here and back his buds up. Now before you mention that the Fourze driver was tossed into a smelter in Movie War Ultimatum, you'd be correct but apparently this movie takes place before Ultimatum. Though the real reason why the Driver's still here is that the assistant Director for this movie wrote on Twitter saying that he forgot that the driver was destroyed by this point. I'm guessing that there's going to be some special later that fills in this plot hole.

https://twitter.com/jumpeishiokawa/status/915194214987657216

 Regardless we have what may be the last canonical appearance of Fourze so they're gonna milk it for all its worth. After Gentaro introduces himself he brings them to Amanogawa High School where according to J.K; Funky brought Enigma to since it was a huge focal point for Space Energy which could be utilized to amplify its power. But they're stopped by Dummy versions of the Leo, Virgo, Cancer and Scorpio Zodiarts. Gentaro transforms into Fourze again and during the course of the fight destroys Enigma's cloaking system. While Fourze holds off the last two Zodiarts Emu charges right to the device.

 On Build's Earth Parado and Sento head back to where Banjo was but don't find Enigma. But what they do find is Fruit Jesus himself; Kouta Kazuraba who reveals their Enigma which starts spilling out thousands of Foundation X Guardian Robots. Kouta transforms into Gaim giving Sento and Parado time to infiltrate Enigma while he brings down the wrath of god on the bots. Both Sento and Emu make it to the control consoles of their respective Enigmas and activate the devices starting the world merger.

Wait a minute, this all seems really familiar.

Oh god, if Superboy Prime suddenly shows up and starts killing everyone while screaming I didn't mean it I'm out of here.

 So yep, apparently their big master plan is to let the bad guys win. Not the most conventional of tactics I will admit but hey I'm willing to see where they're going with this one. But we're running long again and I have a lot to talk about with the movie. Besides there's mostly just the ending fight scene to cover. So next we wrap up Kamen Rider Heisei Generations Final and give my thoughts and feelings about the movie, see you then.

Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.

Kamen Rider is owned by Ishinomori Productions, Toei Productions, and Bandai.
The Spoony Experiment is owned by Noah Antwilder.
Infinite Crisis is owned by Dc Comics, written by Geoff Johns.