Finished playing Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance

Finished playing Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance (2012, Square Enix, Nintendo 3DS) on 07/15/2014.

Gameplay Hours: ~50hrs - Proud Mode and 54hrs Critical Mode

Anticipating the return of Master Xehanort, Master Yen Sid tests Sora and Riku through the Mark of Mastery exam to prove themselves as true Keyblade Masters. The exam throws Sora and Riku to all sorts of familiar Disney worlds. But they find these worlds in their sleeping state ridden with creatures known as Dream Eaters. And to reawaken those worlds our heroes must partner up with the benevolent kind of Dream Eaters known as Spirits to fight back the not-so-nice kind known as Nightmares.

9/10 - I had been playing this game sporadically ever since it came out in July, 2012. I played it in Proud Mode to unlock Critical Mode to then finally unlock the Secret Movie. But let's get to the point, this is my second favorite Kingdom Hearts installment, my top favorite one being Birth by Sleep, also a handheld. I just love everything about it! Specially how the Flowmotion mechanic lets you move faster through stages and easily navigate over even town rooftops! It's even integrated into the character's battle moves! And then there's the Dream Eaters. This feature is screaming Pokémon, seriously! You turn wild Dream Eaters into tamed ones which you can train and then even battle through a card-game battle-system via local wireless with other KH3D players! There's one thing that this feature has that I wish Pokémon had, the ability to customize your Dream Eater's color. Can you imagine if you could change your Metapod's color to I don't know, let's think of a random color here, uhh, let's say, a flesh-colored Metapod! Huh! Right? No? Hahahah! Alright, alright, let's move on to the soundtrack. Yoko Shimomura. 'Nuff said. Amirite? Don't even have to tell you how great it is. I love all the tracks with my favorite one being the theme for La Cité des Cloches world. But this soundtrack is unique because the Symphony of Sorcery world features some of the original classical music used in Disney's Fantasia movie. And that's pretty interesting! I could really go on about how amazing this game is, but this review is getting too long so let me just leave you with one last thing I think is very important to mention and that's the realistic character faces in The Grid world. If there's one thing Square has always done right was faces. And they really did a great job considering this is a handheld console. The texture of the skin, even Jeff Bridges' beard looked amazingly detailed. Even the likeness of the characters were awesomely accurate! The facial expressions were amazingly done as well and expertly synchronized with the voice acting!

Finished watching Space Pirate Captain Harlock

Finished watching Space Pirate Captain Harlock (1978, Toei Animation, 42 epi.) on 07/11/2014.

A race of plant-based alien beings known as the Mazone threaten a futuristic Earth claiming the planet once belonged to them before humans took over. But, without official consent from Earth, in their path stands Space Pirate Captain Harlock with his space battleship, the Arcadia, manned by his lively crew of space mateys as he departs on a journey to the source of the Mazone.

7/10 - For its time I'm sure the show was pretty epic, but I did fall asleep on a handful of episodes. Regardless, I did enjoy it in its entirety. I was left with some technical questions however about the plot, like why does Mime keep saying that she gave her life to Harlock. for example. I must've fallen asleep when it came up, maybe. Also, there were some scenes that were supposed to be serious but I couldn't help laughing because of the way they were directed, sometimes they were just downright awkward. There's also some sort of weird consistency with the storytelling too, like the Tokargan males having odd-shaped heads one episode and then looking like normal humans on another. I really think this must've been an awesome show to watch in late 1970's Japan. Again, It's not what I'm used to but I certainly enjoyed it. One very important thing to mention is that this is a show based on the manga by the same title which was created by Leiji Matsumoto who, by the way, supervised the creation of those Daft Punk anime videos. Yeah! Remember those? Interstella 5555 was the sh*t! In fact, you'll see a lot of character design similarities throughout most of his work. He has a stock of characters he likes to keep using. Most noticeable examples would be Doctor Zero or even Tochiro from this show.

Finished playing Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

Finished playing Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (2009, Retro Studios, Wii) on 5/30/2014.
Mode: Veteran

Samus Aran is sent to planet Aether to rescue a team of Galactic Federation Marines, but once she arrives she discovers they've all been slaughtered by an invading race of aliens known as the Ing. With the help of ancient alien technology from the indigenous Luminoth, Samus fights to rid their planet of the invasive Ing, all the while dealing with the minor nuisance that are the well-known Space Pirates and a third force whose power might just equal her own.

7.5/10 – Although I think I had a bit more fun playing Metroid Prime 1 (Wii), this one was also pretty cool. The whole Dark Samus thing got me hyped up. What really annoyed me was the last battle. I swear, it took me about five or six tries at it to finally beat the game, but that was because I was holding back on the first few tries until I decided to just pull out the "big guns". Oh, and reading what the scan visor tells you about the enemies can really give you an advantage in battle, specially on that very last one. Gosh, I was so lost on what to do. I really enjoyed the soundtrack on this one too. Specially when I was making my way through the various areas of Aether, even if i knew that there was nothing hiding to jump at me it still made me feel like I should be watchful. Again, the game's a bit difficult compared to MP1, but good nonetheless.

Finished playing Luigi's Mansion

Finished playing Luigi's Mansion (2001, Nintendo EAD, GameCube) 3/7/2014.

Luigi wins his own mansion, but things don't look as great as he hoped when he pays his new place a visit. The mansion is old, gloomy and to his surprise IT'S OVERRUN BY GHOSTS! He soon meets a genius scientist, Prof. E. Gadd who asks Luigi to use his new invention, the Poltergust 3000 to rid the mansion of all the ghosts.

10/10 – Yabo yabo, suku suku!  Lemme just begin by pointing out how detailed those doorknobs were, I swear! Anyways, this game is awesome! It was just what I needed to recover from Vagrant Story's battle system. This whole game is so much fun to play! It is so cleverly done! Well, to me it seemed like the main theme was always playing throughout most of the game. Not that I mind, I always hummed along. Hahaha! And so did Luigi! Isn't that great? But there's plenty of great spooky tracks to go around. But more importantly, the boss battles are very interesting and fun to figure out. But then came the final boss battle that made me want to pull my hair off just because of a stupid little mistake I made which made me think that the correct way of defeating him was actually useless. So now I'll know better to try the same thing twice next time. And then there's a post-game Secret Mansion? That's really awesome considering how short the game was. Heck, I was about ready to just jump right into it if I didn't have other games to scratch off my list. I'll just have to remind myself to come back to it one day.