Doctor Who: The Ribos Operation Review

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When it came to finally reviewing a story from Season 16 I couldn’t bring myself to choose a later serial as the season is one long connective story arc from start to finish, so for this season only (well, and probably Season 23…) I will be reviewing these in order, whenever I swing back round to it again. “The Ribos Operation” isn’t exactly a stellar start, while I do like the concept of the season and Mary Tamm impresses straight away as Romana a lot of the actual core story is, well, dull frankly. Oh well, let’s take a closer look!

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Doctor Who: Horror of Fang Rock Review

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Time to tackle another personal favourite of mine with “Horror of Fang Rock”, a classic claustrophobic base under siege (or in this case, lighthouse under siege) story with an eclectic cast of characters slowly being picked off by a mysterious creature. It only features about five sets but everything is written and directed so well that you don’t notice, or if you do, you don’t care. It also introduced the Rutans visually at last in currently their only TV appearance, oddly enough! Let’s take a look.

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Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade (GBA) Review

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Fire Emblem, or “Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade” to give it its actual title, was the first of the series to see a release in Western territories and I remember being interested thanks to Roy being my most-played character in Smash Melee, but as I often did at that time I assumed I’d be crap at tactical RPGs and the idea of permanently losing party members really didn’t appeal due to that assumption. Fast forward a decade or two and this game ended up on the Switch Online app and with renewed self-confidence and interest in JRPGs of all kinds I decided to give it a go, and you know what? I really enjoyed myself. I’ll admit I used save states at the start of each map for quicker restarts should I lose someone I don’t want to, which isn’t in the spirit of things, but beyond that I played legit and eventually got the hang of it and had fun. Want to know more? Read on!

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Doctor Who: The Masque of Mandragora Review

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The next somewhat random Fourth Doctor serial to get reviewed is the “Masque of Mandragora”, another one of those stories I can’t remember the last time I watched due to an overriding feeling of it just being “okay”. It is a rare Fourth Doctor “pseudo historical” and set in Italy’s past no less, but despite sentient time energies, evil cultists and swashbuckling scenes it’s… yeah, still just “okay”. Let’s take a look anyway!

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Mobile Fighter G Gundam (Episodes 1 – 13) Review

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It’s finally time for our next archive anime review series and it’s also the return of looking at an older Gundam series, though really “Mobile Fighter G Gundam” isn’t a Gundam series in nearly every way you’d normally count one as, beyond having white mobile suits called “Gundam” in it, though even then there are tonnes of them of all colours, shapes and sizes. Instead G Gundam is far closer to the old fashioned “Super Robot” shows that the original Gundam tried to distance itself from, with some Shonen fighting tropes thrown in to make things even weirder. The important thing though: does this mean it’s bad? No, it’s quite fun actually…

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Doctor Who: The Imposters Review

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So… this was a rare one. “The Imposters”, the latest Third Doctor audio adventure, dropped a week or two ago now and got such universal distain from pretty much everywhere that it put me off listening to it straight away. Normally I’m a “I’ll form my own opinion and check what others said afterwards” kind of guy but in the forums I visit this time opinions were unavoidable and oddly one sided, no “I actually liked it…” rebuttals or anything. Having now listened to all six parts I can say this: Yep! It’s pretty dire alright. Let’s take a look…

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Doctor Who: The Seeds of Doom Review

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Kicking off this run of Fourth Doctor reviews is one of my all-time favourite Doctor Who stories: “The Seeds of Doom”, which features the plant-based Krynoids and spends one third of the story in Antarctica and the other two-thirds in the British countryside, leading to a fun six parter that doesn’t lose steam like so many of its peers. Let’s take a look!

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Final Fantasy I: Pixel Remaster (PS4) Review

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Kicking off this mini-marathon of “RPGs I’ve played recently” is one of the pioneers of the genre: Final Fantasy I. It’s a game I’ve always wanted to play through and tried several times but the old school grind without a story to motivate me led to me dropping it. Fast Forward to today (or, well, a while ago) and I finally brought the Pixel Remaster bundle of FF I – VI knowing that you can put an XP multiplier on in order to speed up a lot of the grind without necessarily “cheating” the game and wouldn’t you know it? I finally completed it. Now, I won’t go around saying I completed it legit, but it was pretty close, so what was it like as an experience in the mid 2020s?

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