Video Game Review: E3 2019 thoughts/Madoka Magica Magia Record: She’s still alive!

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 Before I say anything this review is in no way, shape or form influenced or sponsored by Aniplex, Magia Quartet or anyone involved with the game or Madoka Magica franchise. This is all me, a fan giving basically free advertisement of my own accord. With that said June of 2019 is turning out to be quite a wonderful and surprising month for gaming. First we have the US release of Persona Q2 New Cinema Labyrinth; the last major release on the 3DS just a few weeks ago. E3 actually gave me something to smile about and not just how pathetic EA and Ubisoft are and the live Adult Swim show that is the Devolver Digital presentation I’m talking about some real good stuff. 

 Not only do we have a release time for Kingdom Hearts Remind but we also have the remake of Final Fantasy 8 (for the like, three people who actually like it.) But my highlights of E3 is the confirmation of both No More Heroes 3 and Banjo Kazooie for Smash!!!

 But in the midst of all this is that a little mobile game that I’ve been eyeing since its release in Japan back around 2017 is getting released in the states on the 25th. Magia Record, a moble game tie in to Madoka Magica. When I heard this was finally making it stateside only one thought ran through my head. 

 I mean as a Madoka fan how could I not want this? It’s free (technically), introduces a new story, more characters and more chances for Urobutchi and his crew to rip your heart out and squish it like a bug, what more can ya want?! Now there is a story to go with this game so without going into major spoilers the new main is Iroha, a magical girl who’s set up shop in the city of Kamihama and is looking for her little sister Ui who is also a Magical Girl and has been missing for quite some time. Along the way she’ll meet up with some new friends, some familiar to us, others brand new. But aside from the usual witches running around and spreading despair like Johnny Appleseed after listening to Linkin Park for too long there’s these new monsters called Rumors who; just like the rumors in Persona 2 Innocent Sin are the manifestations of rumors spread by the people of the town. 

 Only unlike the majority of Persona 2 rumors these ones manifest as Witch like creatures who exist to perpetuate the rumors that spawned them. Usually that involves killing people in some convoluted Two Face or Riddler esc obsessive compulsive fashion. As if that wasn’t weird enough, in Kamihama; Magical Girls don’t turn into Witches, instead their witches manifest as Doppels, which are basically dollar store versions of Stands or Personas, only with more body horror, YAY! And just like Innocent Sin; tying all of these weird events together is a cult of Magical Girls called the Wings of Magus with weird powers and objectives. Also there's this weird Kyubey like creature running around which doesn't seem to be part of the collective and no this isn't Juubey from Innocent Malice it actually looks like Kyubey just more intentionally cute. 

 From what little I can gather on this game the combat isn’t too complicated. You can control up to 5 of your favorite MG’s as you battle it out with Witches, their familiars, Rumors, other MG’s you know the drill. While I’m not too familiar with the exact controls you can input certain commands and cards related to your team to unleash normal attacks, buffs, Final attacks and with some of the girls you can summon their Doppels for a screen nuke that will if not wipe you your enemies then at the very least give you a major advantage. You can recruit other MG’s to chose from but there comes the big catch with this game. It’s a Gatcha free to play game where depending on if you progress in the story, log in daily or buy them yourself you can acquire Gems to spin the wheel and see if you can get a brand new MG for your team. 

 Now I personally recommend not buying these types of currency unless there’s a special deal going on, like a discount or getting something on top of the Gems your getting like how Kingdom Hearts Unchained X does its weekly deals where you not only get jewels for 15 bucks but also access to exclusive deals and Medals for the week, basically make sure you’re getting enough bang for your buck know what I mean? Speaking of KHUX there's the girls themselves and how they level up. See there's a Star tier system. The higher the rank the girls are, the more powerful they are, simple enough. Starting with the 1 Star to the top tier 5 Stars.

 Not exactly sure how they level up but it's there. Also if there's a 5 Star MG they will have a Doppel. Sometimes with updates MGs who could only go up to 4 starts will get a boost to 5 and a Doppel of their own. So make sure you save them all cause you never know. But speaking of Gems it's time to get to the brass tacks of why I mad this article in the first place.

 To promote the game Aniplex or whomever decided to do a promotion campaign for potential player. If they can reach a pre determined number of per orders for this free mobile game (wtf?) we get escalating bonus'. The top one for 20,000 people pre ordering this sucker is that every player will get the 4 Star Glasses Homura and 150 Gems. Not sure how valuable those gems are but for a 4 Star Moemura I think we need to send some love their way I don't know about all of you. Here's the link to the tweet so you can share with your other friends which includes the link to the Apple Page so you can help us get a leg up in the game and get the poor purple more blob before her world turned her into Loli Schwarzenegger.

https://twitter.com/MagiaRecordEN/status/1134164835057299456

 So there you have it, we not only have the original 5 of Madoka, Homura, Sayaka, Kyoko and Mami but we'll also get a plethora of new original MG's and some of the MG's from the Spin off Manga will get their long over due time in the spotlight, including Kazumi and Yuma, yay! Listen, I love the Madoka series because it has earned it from me. This is not my usual thing, either Magical Girl stuff or Gatcha free to play stuff, but there is always the exception that proves the rule as Madoka deserves. With this, a Manga and anime adaptation of this game coming out this year it's a clear sign that this franchise isn't going anywhere. Hopefully with enough support we'll finally get the conclusion we've all been waiting for.

 Yes I know it sounds naive but as a certain pinkie pie once said "If someone ever tells me it's a mistake to have hope, well then I'll just tell them they're wrong and I'll keep telling them until they believe; no matter how many times it takes." Besides with that much cheddar rolling in they'd have to be crazy not to bank on that, YA YA!! Well with my community service done for now, time to get back to my sentence of reviewing Heisei Generations Forever. 

Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story: Magia Record is owned by Aniplex, F4samurai and Magica Quartet.
Street Fighter (TV Series) is owned by Capcom, Graz Entertainment, InVision entertainment, USA Studios and Discotek Media
Spongebob SquarePants is owned by Nickelodeon, Stephen Dillenburg, United Plankton Pictures, and Viacom International Media Networks

Movie Review UHF: I can see why people refence this so often.

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For as long as I've been on the Internet, for as long as I've been a fan of reviewers, whether it's the people at Channel Awesome, the Escapist or even the dudes or dudettes wandering around on Youtube and everything in between, there has been one movie that seems to be synonymous with almost all of these people.

NO, not that one! Look at the title.
                             
That's right, the cult classic UHF. Aside from the humor, spot on parodies and of course the magic of Weird Al, UHF seems to be a spiritual precursor to the modern Internet critic. I mean think about it for a second, the movie is about a guy who has creativity, imagination and a good sense of humor but not an opportunity to let those talents shine. Then he gets that chance and with his paltry resources, perseverance, determination, a stroke of pure luck and one of the best motivational speeches about a mop (seriously) he created content that is beloved by hundreds if not thousands of people.

Gee, does

this sound

somewhat familiar?

 But yeah kind of spooky when you think about it. Now I might not be the first guy to make this connection but yeah, if you think about it it is there. But, here's where I run into a bit of a problem with this movie, I don't really want to talk about the contents of it because, 1st, most people should see the whole movie for themselves and not just for the clips but for my second reason. 2nd, I really want to figure out how is it exactly that movies like this succeed where other parody movies fail? But I will talk about my favorite character in the movie R.J Fletcher. This guy is every single over the top rich, white, old money douche-bag cliche all rolled up with a 100 dollar bill and smoking it in-front of a family of homeless people then walks away laughing like the Joker when he's done. I'm honestly surprised that out of all the clips of this movie that critics use, very few if any of them involve this guy. I seriously thought this guy deserved a cartoon show, even Ted Knight, Big T Larrity and Duke Phillips would tell this dude to calm down. Now for my questions about UHF, or for that matter parodies in general, how is it that the good and most remembered ones know which then popular subject matter to satirize? Now I think that this conversation can be traced back to one of my personal heroes Mel Brooks and his first hit parody "Young Frankenstein".

"It's pronounced Fronkensteen"

Whatever, I'll call you Ball Park Frank for all I care. Back on topic, the reason why a good majority of Mel Brooks' movies worked is that they were satirizing material that many people were not only familiar with but have also been around for at least decades. So for him, creating parodies that could stand the test of time was half the battle, the rest was up to him and his co-writers work, making sure that every joke worked and knowing exactly what it is about the material that they were handling was about and how to take said source material and turn that into something funny. Now creating a movie that satirizes current popular pieces of media is a far trickier task in my opinion. How do we know what material will stand the test of time and how can we write a good story that is able to tell these jokes and give this commentary without the jokes and commentary being the only things the movie has going for it. And for that Kids, it's time for an edition of "Good Movie, Bad Movie".

 Wayne's World is not only a good movie in its own right but the jokes are still funny and relevant to various forms of entertainment to this day, case in point.
            
My guess as to why Wayne's World and UHF work is because the writers know what exactly makes their subjects work, and craft the story of these movies so that the jokes could actually make sense of the movie's context. Another part of that is just plain old luck, back in the day who honestly thought that media pieces like Indiana Jones, Star Trek, The Graduate and what not would still be relevant? Back then, probably not a whole lot of people, I'm willing to be that back when these movies and TV shows came out they would get their brief time in the spotlight and be spoken of in the same breath as Pogs, Poodle Skirts, Miami Vice and Greatest American Hero. Now on to the other side of the coin.

Or anything done by Seltzerberg.

These movies only focus on making as many references to current movies as possible with very cheep and nonsensical framing devices. This on top of having flimsy premises and filling the rest of the run time with disgusting gross out scenes to try and milk shock humor just causes these movies to fall apart like a house of cards. Now I'm not saying that indulging in the Zeitgeist is completely bad but just try not to make your jokes only about what's happening right now or fill in the cracks in your comedy with just dick and boob jokes.

Now if I've truly learned anything from this review is to never talk about comedies. Mostly because if I'm talking about good comedies I'd just be explaining the jokes.

         
And if it's a bad comedy I'd be just me screaming about how it doesn't work. I may try something like this again if a movie comes along that just sends me over the edge or I truly want to highlight it, but don't expect reviews of comedies all that often from me.

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

UHF is owned by Weird Al Yankovic, Orion Pictures, MGM, Shout Factory and Cinecorp.
Street Fighter (1994) is owned by Capcom, Universal Pictures, and Columbia pictures. 
Young Frankenstein is owned by Mel Brooks and 20th Century Fox.
Animaniacs is owned by Warner Brothers Animation, Warnert Brothers Television, Stephen Spielberg and Amblin Entertainment.
Wayne's World is owned by NBC films, Paramount Studios, Lorine Michaels and Penelope Spheeris.
Meet the Spartans is owned by Jason Friedberg, Arron Seltzer, Regency Enterprises, New Regency, 3 in a Box and 20th Century Fox.
Batman: The Animated Series is owned by Dc Comics, Warner Brothers and Paul Dini.