Sand Land – Fiend Prince Arc (Episodes 1 – 6) Review

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As a quick little break between older anime reviews I took a look at the adaptation of the sadly now late but certainly still great Akira Toriyama’s Sand Land over the last week or two, that’s the anime series that’s half a cut-up version of the film and half an original story, not the film adaptation or the video game adaptation… that’s a lot of adaptation for a short manga one-off from over 20 years ago! Anyway, these episodes are the film cut up into six with some added bits, but given I never watched the film it was all new to me (beyond a vague memory of having checked up about the manga online in some form or fashion over the years…) So let’s take a look!

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Thor: Origin (Journey into Mystery Issues 83 – 100) Review

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For the longest time Thor was one of my least favourite Marvel characters as my only real exposure to him was when he was a simple hero type who speaks Shakespearian English, it took a while for the comics to find a way to make him “cool”, so to speak, or to add any real interesting layers to the character… or any kind of layers at all, really. For that reason I wasn’t really looking forward to these first fifteen or so Thor issues but brought and read the collection however many years ago for complitionist’s sake, and now I’m looking at them again for review’s sake! So let’s take a look and see if early Thor really is a drag or not…

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Doctor Who: Sontarans vs. Rutans – In Name Only Review

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The Sontarans vs. Rutans mini-series-that-was-originally-a-box-set comes to a close with this rare stand-alone War Doctor story. “In Name Only” does a good job of tying all the different story strands that have been created across the previous three releases while also giving a fun story to digest as well. Let’s take a look!

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Star Wars: Battlefront (PS2/PS5) Review

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Here’s a review I never really thought I’d do, or at the very least it wasn’t on my mind, but thanks to the re-release of the two “Classic” Battlefront games I thought there would never be a better time to look at these PS2 greats from my early 20s than now. The original Battlefront was interesting because most things I remembered about the PS2 era Battlefronts comes from countless hours playing Battlefront II, I mean I played this a hell of a lot, don’t get me wrong, but as soon as BFII came out the following year I naturally stopped. So I made sure to play this a bunch (including a couple of hours of multiplayer with the same friend as the first time round!) before touching its sequel to make sure this review is focused on just the original. Oh and yes, the Battlefront Classic Collection was rough on launch, but for me who just plays offline by himself or with friends/family split-screen after the first patch I’ve had no issues… Let’s take a look!

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Fallout – Season 1 Review

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After some good film efforts and an outstanding TV series in The Last of Us game adaptations are suddenly and frankly finally on the upswing and Fallout doesn’t do anything to stop the momentum, in fact it carries it forward showing that you can have an adaptation that’s amazingly faithful to the source material and have it be approachable to those completely unfamiliar with it. As one of “those” Fallout fans who got into the series thanks to Bethesda’s Fallout 3 and onwards I was constantly stunned at the level of detail the series had in recreating not just the look but the feel and storytelling of the games, as well as its comical over-violence. Basically, I loved the show, not just as a faithful adaptation but just as a great show in general! Let’s take a look.

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Doctor Who – Dream Team Review

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The second story of the latest Fifth Doctor boxset sees the return of the “Dream Crabs” from the Twelfth Doctor Christmas Special “Last Christmas” as well as a couple of audios a year or two ago, and its safe to say that there really isn’t anything new you can do with them beyond repeating the same story beats from their first appearance. Most returning monsters you can put some sort of spin on but here its more dreams within dreams sequences and fake-outs, with only a little wrinkle in why they are where they are. Still, unoriginal as it may be, what was it like to listen to? Let’s find out!

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One Piece – Fishman Island Arc (Episodes 554 – 574) Review

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After spending an extra review’s worth of time with the Fishman Island arc it’s time to bring it to a close, thankfully. Okay, the finale has some classic One Piece “satisfying villain beatdown” about it, but really thanks to not really caring about either the villains or the new good guys it doesn’t have the same impact as it has done in previous, or indeed future arcs. Either way, let’s take a look and get this arc out of the way for good…

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The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages (Manga) Review

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The next Zelda manga adaptation is, unsurprisingly, the Oracle of Ages, following on from Seasons last time (though the games could be played in either order, for the record). After a magic seasons-changing rod and some talking animals gave Seasons a unique feel Ages feels more in-line with your standard LoZ affair, including time travel and even a battle with Ganon at the end (though again that would happen at the end of Seasons if you played the games the other way around…) So let’s get to it!

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Doctor Who – The Merfolk Murders Review

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The latest Fifth Doctor boxset continues the trend of well written genre pieces with “The Merfolk Murders”, a great example of Doctor Who doing the classic “whodunnit?” story, with a 1940 Scottish historical setting to finish it off. In fact this is a full-on historical in that beyond our time travelling protagonists there are no sci-fi elements at all. So let’s take a look at this murder mystery and keep in mind that the spoiler section is perhaps more important than ever in terms of not looking at it if you intend to get the most out of the story!

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Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth (PS5) Review

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Time to take a look at one of my most anticipated games of recent memory with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. The second part of the Final Fantasy VII “Remake Trilogy” arrived back at the very end of February and I’ve been playing it like a man possessed! Taking characters and a world I already love and not only expanding the already great combat system from the last game but also adding in fun open world exploration with great graphics and no pop ins and errors like the PS4 Remake was a recipe for greatness in my eyes, and I’m thrilled to report it lived up to those heights. So let’s take a rather unavoidably long look at the game!

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