The Legend of Korra Reviews: "Peacekeepers"

I don't have many complaints about this one, so I'll keep it short.

The Legend of Korra Reviews: "Civil Wars: Part 2"

Quote from my last review: "This stuff is interesting because nobody is straight-up evil." I expected this to bite me in the butt, but not as hard as it did.

The Legend of Korra Reviews: "Civil Wars: Part 1"

This episode was quite different from what I'm used to getting from Korra.

The Legend of Korra Reviews: "Rebel Spirit" and "The Southern Lights"

I watched the premiere of Korra Book 2. Interestingly, it seemed to directly address many of the complaints people had about Book 1:

Metroid Fusion Has No Rhythm

The Metroid series is defined by its comprehensive world design, quick pacing, lonely atmosphere, and subtle narrative. This is the reason the latest entry in the series, Other M, is reviled by the majority of the fanbase. While it's still enjoyable to an extent thanks to some good individual level design, Other M is marred with an excessively sentimental, melodramatic storyline that breaks up the game into pieces through long cutscenes coming at the end of many segments, all while destroying the flow, freedom and subtlety the series had previously held close.

However, Other M may not have been the start of darkness for Metroid. Many of that game's problems were birthed from an entry in series that was released eight years prior to it: Metroid Fusion.

Metroid Fusion was released in 2002 on the Game Boy Advance as the fourth entry in the Metroid series. It was released on the same day as Metroid Prime for the Gamecube. Metroid Prime, a fantastic take on the series that took it into first-person 3D, was made by Nintendo's new friends at Retro Studios. However, Nintendo didn't have much faith in the project because of its first-person perspective, which they thought would alienate fans of Metroid and fans of Nintendo in general. Fortunately enough, Nintendo had a new traditionally-styled, sidescrolling Metroid game developed by their good old R&D1 team (of whom had developed all of the previous Metroid games) in the form of Metroid Fusion sitting around for them to fall back on. So fans who were willing to try something new could buy Prime while fans who just wanted more Super Metroid could buy Fusion.

Let me just say this right now: If you want more Super Metroid, play Prime, not Fusion.

Revisiting The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

The Legend of Zelda's development crew is currently hard at work on a new 3D installment in the series for the Wii U. However, seeing as Skyward Sword came out five years after Twilight Princess, the previous fully 3D installment, we may have to wait a while. Normally, we'd take this chance to speculate on what the new game will be like once it's finally done. However, this time around, Nintendo decided to keep us from crapping on a game that hasn't even been released yet by throwing an old one back in the spotlight.

A remake of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker will be released for the Wii U later this year, with redone, high-definition graphics, GamePad functionality, and who knows what else. To celebrate this occasion, I think it's time for me to revisit one of the games that defined my first few years of gaming.

Wind Waker was released in late 2002, much to the disdain of everyone. See, when it was announced, people were a little more than skeptical. Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask had already defined an art style for 3D Zelda, which carried on to a tech demo for the Gamecube that showed off what the console could do with the style those games had established. To see Nintendo throw that all away for what seemed like an overly simplistic style that didn't make use of the Gamecube's power was surely a turnoff for many of the fans of the N64 pair of Zeldas. People thought the art style represented what the game was going to be like.

And... they were right. But mostly wrong.

Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 Review

The refinement of the reconstruction.

Before I begin, let me just say that if you haven't played either of the first Pokemon Black and White games, don't read this review and go pick one of them up. Black and White reinvented the Pokemon series by practically starting from scratch, using only new Pokemon for the main game. This allowed the developers to completely fix the balance issues from the previous games. Black and White didn't only reinvent the series gameplay wise, but cinematic wise as well. The Unova region is filled with architecture that makes everything feel grand, with neat camera angles and atmospheric music at its side. But by far the most important reinvention that took place in Black and White was the story. The morality of Pokemon training is questioned, leading to a thought-provoking adventure full of well-defined characters and loads of twists along the way. I can honestly say that playing through Pokemon Black for the first time was one of the greatest experiences I've ever had with a video game. Whether you're new to the series or not, it will make you go "wow."

Black and White's story was so expansive that director Junichi Masuda decided it couldn't be completely held in one-err, two games. Thus, instead of getting a third version of the main games like we got with the previous gens, we got full-on sequels. Do Pokemon Black 2 and White 2 excel as sequels and, more importantly, games? Find out after the jump, I guess. By the way, I'm going to refer to only Black 2 for the rest of the review for simplicity's sake. It's not like White 2 is all that different.