Video Game Review: Top 10 Worst Video Game Sequels I've seen so far: Part 1

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For those who want to see what I think are the best video game sequels here you go

 Now while this list mostly consists of sequels I haven't played I've heard more then enough horror stories surrounding them to draw a decent conclusion. You may be asking why you would be talking about bad Sequels that you haven't played acting like you know what you're talking about. One reason, I value my time and my money and like to avoid spending either on entertainment that isn't worth it. Besides sometimes you can just tell a sequel is going to shit the bed just by looking at it. So let's go down the list of lost time and investment shall we?

#10 Final Fantasy XIII (All of them)

 Yes I'm cheating with these but the internet mostly agrees that Final Fantasy's time during the 7th console generation was nothing short of a monumental disaster. From the boring combat system, the nonsensical leveling, the criminally bad writing to the most unlikable protagonists we've ever seen in a Final Fantasy game it all just amounts to a horrible pretentious mess. Every game in the 13 line had their own problems from the first game being stuck to a giant hall way, 13-2 having a god modding Gary Stu villain on top of one of the worst time travel stories ever created. (Even considering Japan's apparently horrible track record with Time travel stories, for every Madoka Magica and Crono Trigger there's at least 20 Inuyashas and of course the infamous Endless 8 fiasco!) Lightning Returns even takes the message of FF 7, shits all over it and turns Lightning already one of the most unlikable and boring protagonists and turns her into a god damn robot. Supposedly removing all of her emotions and creating a loli version of her to cause chaos whose origins are horrible contradictory and; ugh the more I try to discuss Lumina the more my head starts to split from all the convoluted and contradicting information.

 Needless to say FF13 and its sequels seems to have almost killed my interest in the FF franchise which was pretty small to begin with. For the record I've only played 6, 8 (the worst i've actually played) 9 (aka the best one) 10, and some of 10-2. I just hope that Lighting and none of the characters from 13 ever make it into Kingdom Hearts 3. Whenever that'll come out which of course was delayed because Square for some horribly dumb reason pushed that game back to focus on shitting out these turds. So yes Final Fantasy XIII is to blame for Kingdom Hearts 3 being pushed back for so long, fuck you Lightning and the robot horse you rode in on!

 #9 Mass Effect 3

 Two words can describe every single thing wrong with Mass Effect 3, Electronic Arts. Once again the Unicron of the gaming industry has claimed another victim by getting rid of Mass Effects head writer, replacing him with a guy who hated Mass Effect with the passion of a million flaming hemorrhoids, let him take the franchise and flush it down the toilet by chucking your Shepards history out the window, retconning almost everyone and giving one of the absolute worst endings in recent history. On top of all that they slammed in Multiplayer and online passes to really piss everybody off. Also if you signed onto EA's servers you've most likely been hacked because their security is absolute flaming monkey poop.

 Now the reason this is so low on the list is that I was never into Mass Effect in the first place. I'm a Sony guy and since Mass Effect 1 didn't come out on the PS3 until the collection pack was released I never bothered to care. I mean I tried the Mass Effect 2 demo and was repelled almost immediately, from the intimidating character creation screen to the mountains of data logs dumped onto my lap with all these terms and events that I had no idea about it was just the absolute worst way to entice someone new into the franchise. It was like you were transferred to a new class and on your first day you were given a test that you had no prior knowledge about and the teacher hates your guts and couldn't give a shit whether you knew the material or not.

 Like "who the hell is Cerberus, why was I brought back to life, why did that bitch shoot that guy, why are robots after me, what is going on?!" Personal history with the franchise aside I do know a bad sequel when I hear it and when EA is involved you know it's going to suck something fierce. Now before you even ask, no I am not getting Mass Effect Andromeda because I refuse to give EA my money. All that's left is to paraphrase Spoony and say this "oh fuck you EA you killed Mass Effect fuck you!"

#8 Sly 4 Thieves in Time

 As I said before I'm a big fan of Sly Cooper and I really was enjoying this Game, especially since it gave my PS Vita something to do aside from playing Persona 4 Golden and PS1 rpgs. That is until we got to the fourth level. The villain in that level was a robot called the Black Knight and we later find out the Knight was just a suit controlled by Bentley's girlfriend Penelope. Yep she betrayed Bentley, sold their time travel technology to Le Paradox the big bad for this game and was going on about how she and Bentley could have made a fortune in weapons development but figured that since Sly was holding Bentley's potential with his moral code she decides to help Le Paradox destroy the Cooper family line. Now considering everything that happened in Sly 3 this twist comes out of nowhere and feels like a slap in the face to Bentley and fans of his, that it just drags the whole game down with it.

  Personal issues aside there's another narrative problem, namely with some of the ancestors you play as. Aside from Bob and Tennessee Kidd the rest of the ancestors have techniques that they shouldn't know namely Rioichi, Sir Galith and Salim knows Tennessee's rail run and slide techniques and Gallith and Salim knowing Rioichi's ninja spire jump. The ancestors also know their own exclusive techniques which are never mentioned before in the Thevius Racoonus. I mean if the ninja spire jumps are used before Rioichi you think they'd be written before his time where he could have transcribed how to perform his dragon jump instead of something everyone in the Cooper family would have known and perfected before him? 

 This game also has gameplay problems on top of everything else. I know most people have problems with the motion controls but you can just turn them off. But the developers clearly were trying to do something with the six axis function of the PS3 and Vita, so all that effort can just go out the window. But the biggest problem is the final boss fight. Now the Sly games have had varying degrees of success with their final bosses, the best being Dr M in my opinion. But Le Paradox, just some platforming and quick time events. Your final boss is a quick time event, that gets this spot on the list just for that. Now to wait until Sly 5 shows up and hopefully fixes this mess, you all know it's coming the secret ending makes it clear as crystal, so all that's left to do is wait and see.

#7 Batman Arkham Knight

 The PC version was complete guano and that alone deserves a spot on this list. Though there are some other reasons on top of that, most people didn't like the Batmobile and the repetitive fights against the tank drones. The two main villains aren't as interesting as the true villain of Arkham Knight AKA Joker. Scarecrow just drones on and on about fear and what not and as for the titular Arkham Knight, anyone who knows anything about Batman can tell who it is from the first time he opens his mouth. Yep angsty boy himself Jason Todd, though this is one of those cases where they use him correctly, as a villain who stands as a living reminder of one of Batman's greatest failures instead of trying to make him an anti-hero who never shuts his mouth. 

 His depiction here isn't as good as "Batman Under the Red Hood" but it's still good. Also the Season Pass and DLC was crap. Though thankfully the Riddler Challenges were nowhere near as taxing and numerous as Arkham City. As a conclusion to the Arkham trilogy it's passable but the PC version was simply unforgivable and it would be unprofessional of me to ignore such a horrible crime inflicted on 1 3rd of your paying customers. So WB can choke on the Jokers ashes as far as I care for the horrible butchering of the PC version of the conclusion to one of your biggest franchises.

#6 Kingdom Hearts RE:Coded

 Sorry I know this is technically a spinoff but there are events in this game that are cannon to the whole franchise so yes it's a sequel as much as Kingdom Hearts 2 so it's on the list. Gameplay wise this is the weakest game in the franchise and also the ugliest looking. Though considering that the game involves removing bugs from the data in Jiminys journal I can't help but think that was part of the joke. We don't even play as Sora in this one just a data copy of him that eventually becomes his own being. The only saving grace for this is that they remastered all the relevant cutscenes and plot points of this game in the 2.5 collection as a 3 hour long movie so now people don't even have to go through the trouble of hunting down the old DS game on Amazon anymore. And really when the only redeeming feature of your game is not having to play it, you know it sucks.

#5 Mega Man X6

 I know people would have expected X7 to take this spot but I can't since at least X7 experimented with the 2d to 3D gameplay. It didn't work and they hid the ability to play as fucking X behind the grinding busy work of rescuing Reploids in the Maverick stages. But guess where that mechanic was taken to its absolute worst degree? You guessed it X6, my spot for this list. 

 Keiji Inafune cleary wrote and planed for the Mega Man X series to stop with X5 and holy crap does it show here. The plot is uninteresting, the maverick bosses are boring and unnecessary as if you take out High Max in any of the stages you can jump straight to Gate's stages. But since you have to get all of X's armor parts to make it through the bosses are still required to be beaten so why even give us the option to skip them? Also yes the Reploid rescue system is back and even worse since not only do some of them have upgrade components but there's the new Nightmare Virus that turns them into enemies if you take too long. Also if they turn bad they're gone for good and so is their potential upgrade, and since most of the ones that do have them are hidden in very hard to reach places and the Nightmare is more often then not very close once you see them, you're screwed.

 Not to mention every two stages or so Dynamo shows up to fight X and Zero if nothing else because Capcom didn't know what to do with the guy after X5 and they wanted to pad the game out. Speaking of reoccurring bad guys Sigma is easily the worst he's ever been in the series here. Now narratively I get why he's all broken and crazy here but still why did you include him here anyway? I mean in X5 it was very heavily hinted that he was working with some remaining figment of Dr Wily so why not go with that? Have Wily be the real mastermind as he pretended to be loyal to Gate, stab him in the back and and admit to using Gate and Sigma as part of some grand final world domination scheme as well as completing his revenge against Light by destroying X as well as Zero, himself a failed experiment in Wily's eyes? 

 Maybe even have him play a part in Axl's story in X7 as maybe being the one who created Axl's copy chip and designed him based on Bass' designs? But no we get this poorly designed cash grab instead. X6 is my pick as the worst in the X series and that's my two cents on that. But we still have five more bad sequels to deal with people. Follow the link here to see what I consider to be the absolute worst video game sequels I've seen.

Batman Arkham Knight is owned by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, Rocksteady Studios and DC Comics

Final Fantasy 13 is owned by Square-Enix, Motomu Toriyama and Yoshinore Kitase.

Kingdom Hearts is owned by Square Enix, Disney Interactive Studios, Tetsuya Nomura, and Shinji Hashimoto.

Mass Effect 3 is owned by Bioware and Electronic Arts.

Mega Man x 6 is owned by Capcom and Tokuro Fujiwada.

Sly Cooper: Thieves in time is owned by Sony Computer Entertainment of America and Sanzaru games.

Manga Review: Kazumi Magica the Innocent Malice Volume 3 Pt 1: BEARS!!!

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Yeah notice that I'm not using the interior cover for this one since I don't think I should and can't show you it. But I can describe it, the interior cover is a naked Niko offering the reader a gun with the words "kill me" written in blood on her chest. You'll forgive me for not showing that if only to avoid placing an NSFW warning on this review.

 So last time we saw that things got rather crazy and that they can always go from bad to worse. In this instance Niko somehow turned into a witch even though her gem is as clean as a whistle. Her teammates are understandably horrified at this with Kaoru desperately pleading for Nikos witch to stop. It clearly doesn't work and the witch launches an attack on the others, who were only able to avoid damage thanks to Umikas barrier. 

 Saki manages to get Mirai into the barrier but takes a small cut on her face, Mirai sees this and goes into a Wolverine esq berserker rage! 

MIRAI SMASH!!!!

 She then summons an army, an army of; teddy bears. 

 But yes Mirai can summon an army of teddy bears which swarm the witch and start to rip its flesh off with their bare teeth!!! Even though the witch manages to shake these fluffy piranhas off Miri just combines them into a giant bear to hold the witch down while she turns her wand into FUCKING DRAGON SLAYER!!! And good lord does she know how to use it!

Jesus somebody give this girl a coke! And make sure it's a coke she does not need to be pissed off by giving her a Pepsi BEGONE PEPSI MAN OR SHE'LL CLEVE YOU IN HALF!!!

 So she takes her broadsword and cuts the witch cleanly in half right down the middle with its blood drenching everyone. It's at this point where everyone starts panicking and going crazy, Satomi especially since she's terrified of becoming a witch. Kazumi is horrified that the hand she's holding was alive only a few minutes ago and starts screaming Niko's name. Only for her to show up right next to her asking what's up?! Everyone is of course shocked, confused and surprised as all hell as to what the hell's going on. 

 Juubey explains that that was her "Preliminary" which was the price of her contract. So yeah Niko's back, though looking slightly more evil. But then again this is the same girl who just sat back and let Kazumi be used for target practice a few minutes ago so she just might be showing her true colors or just has a warped sense of humor. Either way near death can give people some leeway with weird behavior. After the happy reunion however Niko reminds everyone that Kazumi's concerns need to be addressed.

 So they take her to Mirai's teddy bear museum called Angelica Bears, which was what Mirai wished for to become a magical girl. Okay so wishing for a teddy bear museum lets her summon teddy bear constructs I get that, but how does a personal museum equal Pyramid Heads Great knife? Back on track it's not what they wanted to show her. Below the museum is the secret of the Pleiades Saints, a freezer for Magical Girls.

 So yeah what Ayase was saying was 100% true, they go around abducting magical girls, steal their soul gems and preserve their naked bodies in cryostasis like they were working with Mr Fucking Freeze?! OUR FUCKING HEROES EVERYONE!!! Oh and their explanation at the end of this chapter is just as crazy. Apparently this is the Pleiades way of rejecting the Magical Girl system.

 Chapter 10 has Kazumi asking questions as to what exactly Witches are and they give her the full story as explained in the main show. However there is one exception that unlike Sayaka who took to the idea of ignoring all pain in their bodies the Pleiades rejected that notion. Because if they forget pain then that's when they truly stop being human. I would argue that you guys may have forgotten a few other things but yeah sure you definitely need to remember pain I can get behind that. Umika explains that all the soul gems they've collected are kept in a special seal, so that even though the gem is still within the 100 meter radius of their bodies the seal cuts them off so they don't become more clouded and corrupted then they already are. Their ultimate goal is to keep the girls from becoming witches and finding a way to return them to being human. 

 Ok first of all, how do you know that there is a way to change them back? I mean you said yourself that the witch is the final step of Magical girls so how do you know there's a way to fix them? I mean you have Juubey with you and I'm pretty sure that if there's a way to fix them he'd tell you. Second, how have you all not been caught by someone yet? I mean only you six can break the seal to the freezer, so that implies that only magical girls can open the freezer, so what would have happened if a friend of one of your victims wished to learn the truth, found the freezer and all of your identities? 

 You'd be fucked beyond repair, you'd definitely be arrested, your prisoners would be free and they'd be so pissed off they'd either A kill you all or B turn into an army of Witches and kill God knows how many people. And last but not least, what's going to happen to the freezer and all the girls inside if the six of you are killed or become witches yourselves? Nikos double became one and you all flipped your shit, which would have most if not all of you succumb to despair and witch out. But since you all survived that means no problem right? Wrong; what if it was Satomi or Saki that witched out instead of Niko who had a backup in her wish? 

 Would you have recruited other magical girls to continue your plans? Then that would mean you'd either recruit a magical girl, reveal the truth about witches and have her most likely go nuts. Or even worse ask someone to make a wish and become a brand new one knowing what lies ahead? Either way this just makes all six of you look downright evil!

 Kazumi then asks another very valid question, when did they discover the truth themselves? To answer that Umika head butts her and restores her memories. So we flashback a few months earlier, where we see the six about to commit suicide under the influence of a witches kiss! You know folks I've gotta come clean for a second, for a while, I almost forgot what franchise this was a part of.

 The six have their own low points that lead to them being enchanted by the witch, Umika had her work stolen by a publisher and presented as the work of a pop idol. Kaoru's leg was broken during practice and her teammates mercilessly bullied the girl who accidentally did it to the point she tried to kill her self but was left in a coma. Satomi accidentally killed the cat she had since she was 3. Mirai was ostracized and ignored by her classmates so her only friends were her homemade teddy bears. Niko accidentally shot her two friends when she was a toddler living in California and Saki's sister was killed in a car crash Saki herself survived. Our chapter ends on a relatively happier note as when the six jump at the witches suggestion they're saved by Kazumi.

Chapter 11 has Kazumi dragging the six into the witches labyrinth and not even lifting a finger when they get attacked by familiars! 

Jesus Christ even Kazumi was a psycho before she lost her memories, is there anyone in this story who isn't at least one level of bonkers?!

 The girls struggle and fight back to which Kazumi asks why they're doing this if they planed on killing themselves in the first place? 

Kazumi I really don't think this is the time or the place for a fighting game or bikini volleyball! Especially after what happens immediately after your little poorly phrased ultimatum.

 The six each grab a rifle and fire at the jellyfish witch. However the witch just re inflates itself and prepares to eat them when Kazumi, convinced that they still want to live saves the six and kill the witch. After the fight the group heads back to Kazumi's place for dinner where they enjoy some of her grandmothers strawberry risotto. They ask where she is now but Kazumi says that she's passed on. The night's events eventually lead to Saki asking about Magical girls so Kazumi tells how she became one, in a flashback, we're officially in flashback in a flashback territory people be very afraid.

 The flashback shows that Kazumi was studying abroad when she learned of her Grandmas condition, so she rushed back to Japan. She was attacked by a witch but was saved by a cameo.

Hi Mami and wow kid did this artist do a number on you and the twins Jeez.

 So she takes care of the witch, Kazumi thanks her and runs off catching Juubeys attention. Our chapter ends with Kazumi learning her Grandma has only a few days left and Kazumi begging her to wake up one more time when the demon bunny cat comes by telling her he can cure her grandma if she makes a contract. So I'll cut it here for now since I may get lost in the flashbacks if I stay here too long. Besides I think I need something to cheer me up after all of this, and so do you. So until next time keep smiling! 

Kazumi Magica The Innocent Malice is owned by Masaki Hiramatsu, Takashi Tensugi, Magica Quartet and Yen Press.
The Completionist is owned by Jirard "Dragonrider" Khalil and Normal Boots
Banjo Tooie is owned by Rare, 4j Studios Nintendo and Microsoft Studios.
Jontron is owned by Jon Jaffri and Normal Boots.

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

Dragon ball Z abridged is owned by Team Four Star. 

Mass Effect 3 is owned by Bioware and Electronic Arts.

Tokusatsu Review: Kamen Rider Gaim Gaiden Zangetsu & Baron Part 1: THINK OF THE CHILDREN! (Spoilers)

Please be sure to read, comment, spread the links, re-tweet and follow me on Twitter @OnDavidsBrain! and support me on Patreon.

I've been waiting for these two for quite a while. As I've gone over several times before Gaim is currently my favorite Kamen Rider series and I know I should be throwing a bit of a fit that Toei is going to be milking this as much as they did with Den-O especially since as far as I can tell Urobuchi isn't going to be writing these direct to video spin-offs. Then again he hasn't exactly been having the best of luck with his more recent shows and projects and that personally makes me a bit of a Sad Panda. But hey if Gaim, Madoka, Psycho-Pass and Fate/Zero are his only good stuff then at least right now he has a better hit/miss record in my mind then George Lucas ( and no I haven't seen American Graffiti, it and Psycho-Pass are on my to do list).

But be of good cheer fair readers; these and subsequent Gaim Gaiden movies will be written by Nobuhiro Mōri and Jin Haganeya; both of whom assisted Urobuchi in writing Gaim and the movies so I still have hope for these spin-offs. I don't want to watch bad stuff if I can avoid it, but I do know that if corporations be it gaming, movies, toku whatever know something works they'll exploit the ever loving shit out of it until people get sick of it, just like with Den-O and its stretched out movie series. Now to start this review but first be forewarned; this will contain spoilers for Gaim since these movies take place between episodes 20 and 21 so before you read this go watch up until at least episode 21 then come back.

So we open on Takatora talking to Kouta at the end of episode 20 where Takatora finished showing Kouta the ruins of the Helheim Forest and explaining his plan to slowly kill off 6 billion people so that the remaining 1 billion have a chance of surviving the world being over taken by Helheim in the next ten years. Takatora also says that if Kouta gets in Yggdrasil's way again he's a dead man. Kouta of course is not happy and asks if Takatora really thinks that this plan is right, but he just walks off. Later that night we see some Kurokage Troopers burning down some of Helheim's plants that have started to sprout in Zawame.

The Kurokage troops are Yggdrasil's foot solders/ mass production Kamen Riders.

Suddenly a crack opens and the two stooges are attacked and knocked out, the next morning Takatora and Sid investigate what happened, Takatora thinking that Kouta might be the one responsible. Okay, he has probable cause but any evidence there chief? Sid of course asks what he'll do if Kouta was the culprit. Takatora saying that he'll eliminate him personally. After Sid leaves he says to himself that no matter how many people must be sacrificed it will be his burden to save what's left of humanity from Helheim.

Later on Takatora returns to his mansion where he has a flash back to his father telling him of Noblesse Oblige.

What pre Iron Man Tony Stark should have learned, but hey hindsight is 20/20.

His little brother Mitsuzane tells him that there's someone here to see him. Her name is Touka Akatsuki, she was his father's maid who Takatora hasn't seen since his father collapsed, so I'm guessing she's here to tell him how his father's doing; catch up on what they've been up too and,

awkward.

Yeeeeeaaaahh that's exactly the news he needed to hear, not only is he spearheading a plan to kill about 80% of earth's population but now he just found out his dad's dead; this of course comes as a shock to him. Later on he asks Micchi about his feelings on this news, Micchi says he doesn't feel anything and walks off saying that he has more important concerns then the dead, damn, you cold dude. Takatora flashes back to when he first met Touka when the two were children. She was brought in by Amagi to be Takatora's servant; on her first day she baked Takatora an apple pie, even though he thought it tasted horrible he ate it nonetheless just for her company and the two had a little laugh about how bad it tasted, aaaaawwww he actually had a heart back then. Takatora brought it up during dinner that even though it tasted horrible it was one of the better meals he's ever had.

I know right he almost seems human, like someone who isn't trying to commit near genocide. Go figure.

Later that night Sid is attacked by the crack warping assailant; he pulls out his Cherry Energy Lockseed but the attacker is gone leaving behind some Helheim vines. The next day Yoko confirms that the M.O. of the attacker was the same as the person who attacked the Kurokages. Takatora, more annoyed then anything says that he hopes he's the next target so he can kick the culprit's ass and get it over with already. He thinks he's about to get his wish in the garage, but it just turns out to be Touka who offers him to stay at her place since he seems stressed out. Oh ho hoooo I see where this is going, she wants him to come over and have a piece of her pie.

What? At least it doesn't look burnt and it does look good.

However it still tastes horrible but he still eats it noting on how it brings him back to his childhood. Now I'm not really going to talk much about this sequence aside from showing that Takatora still has some semblance of humanity and may be leading up to his development in the series. The next day at Yggdrasil Yoko sees some Helheim vegetation and follows it to an electrical room where the lights go out and is attacked by a shadowy figure, the figure then transforms into a Rider before running off. Now that Yoko knows that she's dealing with an Armored Rider she pulls out her Peach Energy Lockseed and Genesis Driver and becomes Kamen Rider Marika, she engages the mystery rider before he teleports into another crack, but not before Marika manages to get off two shots into the crack before it closes.

Takatora brings in Ryoma Sengoku, the creator of the Sengoku Drivers, Genesis Drivers and the one responsible for the utilization of Lockseeds. Anyway he says that the attacker is an unknown Armored Rider and since Ryoma knows who got the Sengoku drivers he must know who has this belt, the problem is that if he did know he's not telling since Ryoma is about as ethical as Dr Suchong. Ryoma then remembers to give Takatora a prototype Lockseed he was working on to replace the Suika Lockseed that Micchi stole from him without his knowledge.

The Watermelon Lockseed, and you can just bet it's as safe as a pillow.

Takatora asks if he knows who has the belt but as I said Ryoma doesn't say who but does say that if it wasn't a beat rider, Takatora thinks it must be someone from Yggdrasil. Ryoma asks for more details about the Rider and when Takatora says he can make cracks without a lock vehicle Ryoma starts to worry. That night Takatora is looking through some research files at home to try and find a clue. He doesn't find anything until he discovers a hidden safe behind a painting and the files inside.

Oh that can't mean anything good.

And inside the files Takatora finds a picture of his father, the institute and pictures of children, some with circles on their picture; others with a red X instead and most damning of all a concept drawing of a prototype Sengoku driver. It's skipping ahead here but yeah it's obvious from what's seen here that Amagi was involved with experimenting on children trying to prefect the Sengoku driver. Yeah he was involved with some seriously bad Juju, but hey it's not like we've seen time and time again

that large

organizations

performing

experiments on

children

was a

horribly

unethical,

and insanely

stupid

thing

to do

right?

Right?

Right?!

Why does this shit keep happening?! I mean those were only just examples off the top of my head. But those more then show that Child experimentation leads to horrible, horrible shit and those that survive more often then not end up as genocide seeking nut jobs with a higher kill count then Chin from Hong Kong 97. So as far as we can guess something undoubtedly horrible is just around the corner with this little revelation. We get some confirmation of that assumption as Micchi gets attacked by the Rider but he retreats as soon as Takatora shows up. He pulls out his Melon Energy Lockseed to transform but the Rider uses his control over Helheim to summon a crack and steal the Lockseed with vines.

Takatora decides to head to the abandoned institute to see if he can find any more clues and hopefully find the Rider. Now I would honestly question why he's going alone and not bringing say Yoko or Micchi or even some Kurokage troopers as back-up since we've seen this Rider taking these guys out when they were caught off guard or were unaware of him. But now they know and could easily out number him, sure even though Takatora lost his Energy Lockseed he could either still stick to Normal Zangetsu or hell since he owns the company that researches these things get another Energy Lockseed from Ryoma. Oh wait there goes me and my logic again. So yeah this genius head of a multinational corporation that owns Kamen Rider production tech goes inside the creepy abandoned research institute on his own to track down someone who has a Sengoku driver yet has easily outfought some of his most powerful comrades and stole your Energy Lockseed reducing him to his original form in case something goes fubar.

 So our oh so smart protagonist heads inside and finds that the place is trashed with very clear evidence of a struggle and yet no bodies. He goes into the basement and finds..... the laboratories where Yggdrasil conducted their experiments on the children.

And we know that nasty business was conducted here since it's an abandoned Shocker facility.

I joke but seriously it's the exact same damn location. I've seen waaaay too many of these shows. Also Toei, splurge a bit and get some new sets already jeez!!!

Takatora is of course appalled that not only were these atrocities perpetrated by Yggdrasil but that his father was the one who authorized it all. He notices an Inves hiding in a door but is attacked by the assassin before he can follow it. As the two struggle Takatora manages to pull off his mask revealing Touka. She explains that the purpose of the facility was to raise potential members of Yggdrasil, some as researchers, others as leaders and others as agents in the criminal underworld. The rest that didn't meet their expectations were used as Guinea pigs in Yggdrasil's Helheim research, that Inves seen earlier a result of that research.

She also reveals that she did in fact kill Takatora's father as part of her well deserved revenge plan, but that was just the tip of the iceberg as far as she's concerned, she won't stop until both Yggdrasil and the Kureshima name are reduced to a pile of ash under her boots. However she hates the fact that someone as nice as Takatora is Amagi's son but as long as his blood flows through Takatora's veins she will chase him down to the ends of the earth to kill him. So with her resolve hardened she pulls out her Sengoku driver and the Ringo Lockseed,

where she becomes Kamen Rider Idunn.

Hang on, she could never make her apple pies taste good, she wants to kill Takatora, her Rider Form is based on an Apple and her name is Idunn?!

He tries to reason with her but she's in full blown crazy revengeance mode and won't listen. The fight moves outside; Takatora saying that while he hates his father and knows all the horrible things he's done there will always be one thing that he taught him that he will never discard. Noblesse Oblige, and that no matter how many sins he must commit, no matter what trails comes his way he will hold on to that lesson and save humanity no matter what. With that he pulls out his Sengoku driver and the Prototype Watermelon Lockseed.

Becoming Kamen Rider Zangetsu Watermelon Arms.

The two Riders face off; Idunn using her ability to control Cracks to her advantage outmaneuvering Zangetsu.

There you big baby, you complained soooo much about the testing, how it hurt and hurt, and yet here you are, killing the only man you've loved. Congratulations, you monster. But hey, at least there will be pie in the end, pie that tastes like death. But you should know that already.

But Zangetsu has his own tricks and goes all Reb Brown on her ass by pulling out the Watermelon Gatling gun and chasing her off. Now we know why he doesn't use this in the series, while the Watermelon gun is incredibly powerful the kickback however is far to much, leaving Zangetsu vulnerable to attack. Since he can barely hold on using that weapon he has to make his next shot count or Idunn will kill him. Which he does, unloading a full assault on Idunn when she tries to do another sneak attack forcing her to power down and drop both her Ringo Lockseed as well as the Melon Energy Lockseed. Zangetsu also powers down due to the strain of the kickback from the Watermelon Gun, the two pick up their respective Lockseeds transforming back to Idunn and Zangetsu Shin.

Zangetsu Shin and Idunn hit each other with their respective Squash attacks, but since New Generation Riders are already stronger then Armored Riders, Zangetsu Shin manages to overpower Idunn forcing her to power down again. Zangetsu Shin however can't bring himself to deliver the killing stroke.

Unlike Dr Manhattan, he misses his swing as we cut to Touka making it back to the research lab where she starts to, for lack of a better term rot away, and that's when Ryoma shows up. It turns out that the Ringo Lockseed was created by him back when Amagi was in charge and just like the Yomotsuheguri Lockseed was considered a defective prototype. He only let her use the Lockseed just so he could use her to get more data on the thing. He further explains that the Ringo Lockseed allows people limited control over Helheim proving to him that the Golden Fruit of Helheim exists and now that she's no longer useful to him, he'll kill her just like she did with Amagi.

Nuttier then an almond joy, showing complete disregard for human life yeah it shows, especially with you.

Touka transforms into Idunn again but is too weak to defend herself so Ryoma transforms into Duke and guns her down like a thug. So the first segment ends with Takatora reflecting on what Kouta said and his time with Touka before walking into his home office.

Tune in next time where we take a look at Baron's part of this straight to video special. Hopefully with a bit of a more lighthearted note.

Kamen Rider is owned by Ishinomori Productions, Toei Productions, and Bandai.
Fullmetal Alchemist is owned by Studio Bones, Square-Enix, Funimation, Viz Media and Hiromu Arakawa.
Bioshock is owned by 2K Boston, 2K Australia, Take-Two Interactive, Ken Levine, Alyssa Finley and 2K Games.
Bioshock 2 is owned by Take2 interactive, 2K Marin, and 2K Australia.
Bioshock Infinite is owned by Ken Levine, Irrational Games, 2K Games amd Take-Two Interactive.
Kill La Kill is owned by Studio Trigger, Hiroyuki Imaishi, Kazuki Nakashima and Aniplex of America.
Mass Effect 2 is owned by Bioware and Electronic Arts.
Metal Gear Rising Revengance is owned by Platinum Studios, Konami and Kenji Saito.
Eureka Seven is owned by Studio Bones, Funimation and Tomoki Kyoda.
F.E.A.R is owned by Monolith Productions, Vivendi Universal and Craig Hubbard.
Monster is owned by Naoki Urasawa, Viz Media and Shogakukan.
Genocyber(OVA) is owned by Koichi Ohata, Shô Aikawa and Central Park Media.
Akira is owned by Katsuhiro Otomo, Tokyo Movie Shinsha, and Toho.
Persona 3 The Movie: No 2 Midsummer Knight's Dream is owned by Atlus, A-1 Pictures and Aniplex.
Persona 4 Arena Ultimax is owned by Atlus, Sega and Arc System Works.
Elfen Lied is owned by Studio Arms and ADV Films.
Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 is owned by EA (Electronic Arts)
Watchmen (Film) is owned by Zach Snyder, Legendary Pictures, DC Comics, Lawrence Gordon Productions and Warner Brothers Entertainment.