Doctor Who: The Savages Review

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Now I thought Underwater Menace and Galaxy 4 were obscure lost stories to animate, “The Savages” has now taken the lead on that front as while it is a sci-fi story rather than a historical and does involve the (rather crap) exit of long-time companion Steven it’s also on the dull side, especially when watching the recon made from a bunch of stills and a soundtrack. Does the animation breathe new life into the otherwise sleepy story? Yes, having moving characters and false-camera work does hold your attention much more easily. Does it mean the story is good now? Um… well…

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Star Wars: The High Republic – Seeds of Starlight & Haunted Starlight Review

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So these two audiobooks appeared as free Audible downloads over the past few months, and while I don’t normally bother with the really young aimed material the fact they didn’t cost anything, were written by High Republic classic George Mann and the knowledge that they deal with the Drengir plot thread while the rest of the Phase III High Republic stories are obviously focused on other things I decided to give them a go. How was it? Well… it was certainly squarely aimed at the younger audience, I’ll say that much, but there was some fun to be found, especially in the second story. Let’s take a deeper look!

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Doctor Who: The Robot Revolution Review

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Doctor Who has returned to our TV screens for its latest season, Fifteenth Doctor in tow. Happily “The Robot Revolution” is much better than the previous series opener, but given that was “Space Babies” that’s not saying much, instead I will say that as a companion introduction story it’s perfect, as a story overall? Not so much. Some ropey designs and some on-the-nose political and social commentary that I would’ve preferred to have been more subtle (though I get this is aimed at all ages…) knocks it down a peg or two. Still fun though, so let’s take a deeper look!

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Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (Nintendo DS) Review

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It’s time to wave goodbye to the “Metroidvania” style Castlevania games as we look at Order of Ecclesia, essentially the swan song of the original timeline/run of games, minus a few multiplayer and phone things anyway. It ends the series with a bang though, not just presentation-wise or gameplay-wise but also a “bang” in the sense of knocking into something hard as the game is really challenging, to put it politely. They knew the people playing at this point would be veterans rather than newcomers, I guess. Well, let’s take a look then, and bring an end to this particular brand of Castlevania on this site (I will get round to the classic and 3D games one day, I’m sure…)

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Doctor Who: The Ambassadors of Death Review

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One of my all-time favourite seasons of the show has found its way to Blu-Ray so it’s time to checkout a story from the set, and once again I’ve gone with the story its been the longest since I’ve seen it and with a season of four stories all of which I’ve watched loads that was hard to figure out. Still, I’m pretty sure Ambassadors of Death is it, and it’s my least favourite of the season. Still, a least favourite in a favourite season is still good, right…?

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What If…? – Season 3 Review

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Several months late to the party on this one but for whatever reason I kept falling out of this season of the show and taking long breaks before I felt like continuing it. It’s a shame because I do like how they use several of the more obscure characters from the latter end of the MCU in the show but the stories themselves are often a bit.. meh. They become less “What If?” and more “Here are some characters in a zany adventure”, which is fine but not really why I liked the other two seasons. Well, either way, let’s finally take a look so I’m once again caught up on the MCU reviews!

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Phantasy Star Online: Episodes I & II (GameCube) Review

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Ten years ago today I posted my first review ever as I kicked off the blog that would become this site. It was of “Last Battle” one of my least favourite games ever (which you can still look at by clicking here!) So I thought to celebrate ten years I’d do the opposite and review one of my favourite games ever, which given I’ve reviewed a lot of those already it was initially hard until me and my friend started replaying Phantasy Star Online Episodes I & II for the GameCube and I remembered why I’d sunk well over 100 hours into it back in the day. Sadly I can’t capture original hardware so I can’t show you my Level 60+ Hunter character but oh well, this new run via an emulator has been plenty fun as well. So let’s take a look at what will probably be the only online multiplayer RPG to appear on this site (as I played it exclusively offline single player/split-screen multiplayer…)

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Doctor Who and the Brain Drain Review

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I will always look forward to more Season 7 content, it remains one of my all-time favourite seasons full stop, so I was really looking forward to “and the Brain Drain”, which I guess is a callback to “and the Silurians” though that title was always an annoying one-off rather than something that should be copied (but let’s not get into the “Doctor Who/ The Doctor” debate!) Sadly Brain Drain took an interesting concept for a one hour story, maybe a four parter at best, and then had to stretch it out for seven parts, causing it to fall to pieces. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of the Season 7 seven part stories can drag but they at least often have alien threats to give some fun cliffhangers! Ah well, let’s take a closer look.

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Dragon Ball Z – Saiyan Arc (Episodes 11 – 20) Review

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It’s time for ten straight episodes of almost entirely filler as the Saiyan Arc grounds to a stop for “not catching up to the source material” reasons, something that actually stops for the most part after this, adopting the “making each episode agonisingly slow” method instead. Having said that I have strong and very happy memories of watching some of these episodes on TV when they first aired (two episodes a day, it has to be said, and some of these filler stories were cut entirely) so I don’t mind some of these stories purely with nostalgia goggles on. Let’s take a look!

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Doctor Who: Faithful Friends – Five Hundred Ways To Leave Your Lover Review

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Classic Doctors, New Monsters: Faithful Friends comes to a close with the Eighth Doctor encountering the otherwise nameless Monks that the Twelfth Doctor faced off with in a rather disappointing three parter during what was otherwise his finest season. When one of these stories comes around you know it will be taking a “new monster” and either doing a retread of their TV appearance or doing something interesting with the species, and given I didn’t massively like their TV appearance I was hoping for the latter, but instead I got the former. Still, does the addition of the Eighth Doctor in a romantic relationship make it better? Let’s find out!

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