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Category: May

Some Fantastic Video Games That Are Quick To Play

As I’ve grown up, time has become more and more precious to me and, while I do play plenty of games that are considerably long, I’ve grown in appreciation for games that are short, hence my frequent use of HowLongToBeat.com. I’ve spoken before about the ideal video game length but I thought it would be interesting to recommend some games that I would consider to be fantastic while, simultaneously, being quick and short to play.

The first game that I would like to bring attention to is a delightful puzzle game called Path of Giants. I got this game as part of Humble Choice and am incredibly glad to have had the opportunity to play it now. You play as three explorers who are searching for treasure and must control each explorer to traverse puzzles. I wouldn’t regard the game as being particularly hard but there are a few puzzles that will take some particular effort to figure out. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the puzzles themselves, the pleasant graphics and the soundtrack and, despite encountering a couple of bugs, I ended up 100 percenting this game which only took me about four hours.

A promo image for Path of Giants.
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The Fascinating Career Of Animator Atsushi Wada

I recently saw that Atsushi Wada’s short film “Bird in the Peninsula” premiered at the 72nd Berlin International Film Festival and was received quite warmly. I confess that I had never heard of Atsushi Wada but, upon seeing some of the artwork in his animation, I did remember seeing some of his works listed under independent Japanese animation before. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at Atsushi Wada, what he does as an animator and his fascinating career.

Atsushi Wada was born in 1980 and studied at the Osaka Kyoiku University, the Japan Institute of the Moving Image and the Tokyo University of the Arts. By 2002, he began to create short animated films which have a very distinct art style. In contrast to the typical anime aesthetic, Atsushi Wada’s films have a style that has been referred to as minimalist, featuring blobby characters in a low detail but highly stylised world.

Atsushi Wada.
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My Ranking Of The Child’s Play Franchise

I’ve recently been on a little bit of a horror binge, looking at franchises that I haven’t seen all of and seeking out the remaining movies. I did this with the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise and I decided that I should check out the other films of the Child’s Play franchise since I’d only seen the first film previously. Having finally watched all eight Child’s Play movies, I thought I’d do a ranking of the franchise, sharing my thoughts on each film and how they compare to each other.

8. Curse of Chucky

I really enjoyed the more comedic stylings of Bride of Chucky and Seed of Chucky and so I found the return to straightforward horror more than a little jarring. That’s not to say that there aren’t good parts to this film. There are a couple of cool story twists, although one of them seems a little too far-fetched for my liking, and Fiona Dourif is great as new protagonist Nica Pierce. However, I found myself wishing that we saw more of Chucky’s personality and really found myself missing Tiffany. However, I do want to point out that it is rather telling about the Child’s Play franchise’s consistency that my least favourite Child’s Play film is better than my four least favourite Texas Chainsaw Massacre films.

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How I Came To Love Video Games

As you may have surmised from my various articles covering the topic of video games, I absolutely adore video games and I now count them as one of my primary hobbies along with anime, manga, Western animation and horror films. I recently wrote about some of the first anime and manga that I ever watched/read and thought it would be interesting to take a look at my history with video games and how I grew to love them.

From my earliest memories, I can remember that we had a computer in the house and there were several games that I ended up playing on there. In particular, the two games that I have the most vivid memories of playing were Sesame Street: Numbers which was an educational Sesame Street video game and Commander Keen which was a platformer that, despite playing a lot, I never got too far in. At this point in my life, I enjoyed the games that I was given by my parents but I wasn’t capable of deciding why I liked these games.

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Interesting Manga That You Might Have Missed – Recommendations

I’ve previously recommended manga that I would consider to be less popular but still great and, given how popular that article has turned out to be, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at some manga that you might have missed and give some recommendations. The goal of this article will be to try to appeal to both those who are very familiar with manga and those who are just looking for some manga to get started with.

Utsubora, also known as Utsubora: The Story of a Novelist, was released by Vertical in 2013 and was originally released in Manga Erotics F, an experimental manga magazine. The manga opens up with a young woman committing suicide and Shun Mizorogi, an author with a mysterious relationship with the young woman, comes across her sister who resembles her in nearly every way. What follows is a very compelling mystery drama that manages to grip your attention as you figure out what is going on. The artwork is also very stylised with some excellent use of negative spacing. There is some strong sexual content so those that are squeamish may want to avoid Utsubora but others should definitely seek it out.

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The Surprisingly Different Experience Of Japanese Movie Theatres

As a Gundam fan, you can imagine that I was quite curious about how Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway, the newest film in the Gundam franchise, would do both critically and financially. While keeping an eye on the box office news, I noticed an article from Anime News Network called “Gundam: Hathaway Film Sells Over 53,000 Blu-ray Discs Just in Theaters“. This news made me think about how surprisingly different the experience of going to Japanese movie theatres can be and so I thought I’d take a look at it.

Understandably, the basics are the same. You go to a movie theatre, select your film and then watch the movie on a large screen with a crowd of people. However, various other aspects can feel quite different or unusual. Beyond the staff seeming exceptionally nice compared to the staff of so many other countries, some of the larger movie theatres allow you to select which seat you wish to be seated in.

The Japanese poster for Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway.
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Important Video Games That I Have Yet To Play

If you’ve been consistently reading my blog, you’ve probably figured out that I’m quite passionate about the medium of video games. Across my lifespan it’s entirely possible that I’ve played close to 1000 video games across numerous platforms. However, even having played so many games, there are still plenty of important video games that I’ve yet to play. Taking that into account, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at a few examples, what’s prevented me from playing them and whether I believe I’ll get the opportunity to play them in the near future.

Despite owning a Nintendo 64, a GameCube, a Wii, a Game Boy, a Game Boy Advance and a Nintendo DS, I’ve actually played very little from Nintendo’s gaming catalogue with the only examples of Nintendo franchises that I remember actively playing and seeking out being Pokémon and Fire Emblem. Later in my life, I grew interested in platformers and, of course, I started to think about the many Nintendo platformers such as Super Mario 64, Metroid, the Donkey Kong games etc. I’ve also thought on occasion about the Zelda games and how, while I do have a copy of The Wind Waker, I’ve never completed one. Since my move to PC, my options for playing Nintendo games have become quite limited and while I could emulate Wind Waker on PC using my own personal copy, I’ve decided to focus on my many other games to play instead. It also seems quite unlikely that we’ll see Nintendo release their games on PC in the near future so, possibly excluding Wind Waker, I think my chances of being able to play these important games are quite low.

Wind Waker is likely to be the only Nintendo game I can play in the near future since I could emulate the game using my disc.
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Why You Need To Know About Authorized Books Of Japan

Piracy continues to plague the manga industry and while I’ve spoken about my opposition to piracy in the past as well as listing several ways to read manga online legally, it’s clear that there is still so much more I can do to help combat this issue. Recently, I came across a new stamp that has the potential to be incredibly helpful in the battle against piracy and, since I’m sure many people are still unaware of this and what it means, I thought I’d take a look at why you need to know about Authorized Books of Japan.

As far as I can tell, Authorized Books of Japan was first trademarked in 2019 with the goal of providing clarity on which websites provide manga legally and which ones distribute manga illegally. When you access a website that has been approved by the Authorized Books of Japan, you’ll be able to find their mark on the webpage, typically at the bottom, that tells you that the website is selling copies of manga legally.

The mark in question.
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The Surprising Benefits Of Off-Model Animation

Producing animation is a large, laborious and complex process and it’s not uncommon to see signs that animation is being rushed and taking shortcuts. One of the more infamous and well-known signs of this is off-model animation. Typically viewed negatively, there are times where animators intentionally use off-model animation in a positive way. Therefore, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at off-model animation, some of the surprising benefits of it and some examples.

I should first start off by explaining, for those of you unfamiliar with the concept, what off-model animation is. When developing animation, it’s common to use model sheets to maintain a consistent look and art style between all of the people working on the project. However, due to time constraints, outsourcing, lack of budget etc., it’s very possible that some animation is going to slip through which looks inconsistent with the rest of the art.

A pretty infamous off-model shot of Belle from Belle’s Magical World.
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