Finished watching Space Battleship Yamato: The New Voyage

Finished watching Space Battleship Yamato: The New Voyage (1979, Academy Productions, Group TAC, 1hr 35mins.) on 10/2/2015.

After the White Comet Empire was defeated, Lord Desler decides to pay one last visit to his home planet and finds the Black Nebula empire strip-mining it for a rare mineral. Desler then contacts Earth, specifically the Yamato crew for help in driving the new enemy away.

7/10 - The movie was alright and I don’t really have much to say about it comparing to the previous movie. I am, however starting to get the feeling that there's always so many silly plot holes with these old shows. I'm having fun seeing the art quality improve as I go along the franchise, though.

Finished playing Sonic Advance 3

Finished playing Sonic Advance 3 (2004, Dimps, Sonic Team, Game Boy Advance) on 9/25/2015.

Gameplay Hours: ~20 …maybe?

Doctor Eggman has partnered up with his most powerful robot, Gemerl and divided Earth into seven distinct chunks where he plans to build seven separate empires on each one of them. Of course, this means it’s up to Sonic and friends to stop Eggman in his tracks.

7.5/10 – This game was fun. Not as great as the first one, but a big improvement from SA2. Lemme tell you why:

1. All main playable characters are easily unlocked by just beating certain levels.

2. You can team up any two characters and each combination gives you different abilities and moves. Combining Amy with Sonic for example, gives Sonic his own hammer.

4. Special combinations are even appropriately titled. Sonic & Tails for example shows as "The Unbreakeable Bond". Sonic & Amy, "The Cute Couple".

5. Certain combinations even have their own different sprites. For example, when you pair Sonic and Knuckles, they appear annoyed at eachother.

6. You don't have to defeat every single of Dr. Robotnik's boss machines in a row to get to the final boss. This however, is available as a Time Attack feature after collecting all the Bronze, Silver and Golden Special Rings from every single stage (not a frustrating task).

7. Most importantly, Chaos Emerald collecting isn't as frustrating as SA2 was. You do still have to explore the levels however, hunting for lost Chao critters, but once you find them you don't have to go look for them again. You simply have to search the levels in that Zone for a Special Key, which isn't hard at all to find. That one-use key will allow you access to the Special Zone.

8. The Special Zone is similar to Sonic 2 or SA1 in terms of gameplay but even though the difficulty goes up with each new zone, it's not at all frustrating to get all the Emeralds in your grubby little hedgehog hands.

9. This unlocks the Final Zone where you play as Super Sonic and team up with Dr. Eggdoodles to defeat his little robot invention-gone-berserk. This too, although a bit difficult is not a highly frustrating level.

I enjoyed this game and I'm happy I was able to collect everything it has to offer without losing sleep over it.

Balanced difficulty. Little frustration.

Finished watching Arrivederci Yamato and Yamato 2

Finished watching Arrivederci Yamato (1hr 31min, Academy Productions, Group TAC, 1978) and Yamato 2 (26epi., Academy Productions, Group TAC, 1978) on 9/25/2015.

Earth is faced with a new threat two years after the fall of the Gamilas Empire. For Yamato the White Comet Empire is their most fearsome opponent yet. But that isn’t the only thing Yamato has to worry about, Lord Desler isn’t quite finished with the business he has the Yamato. But the answer to their problems lies with Teresa, the only being on planet Telezart.

Arriverdeci - 7.5/10

Yamato 2 - 4/10

Arriverdeci Yamato was in Japanese theaters shortly before Yamato 2, the 26-episode anime adaptation aired on TV. Yeah, I don't know. Usually it's the other way around, but whatever. Anyways, that is the order I watched them in. Which made watching Yamato 2 significantly boring. Not only that, but the story and art quality were even worse. I even fell asleep during most episodes. I would've been better off just watching the movie, which by the way was pretty good, a bit lengthy and that scene right at the start with the comet dragged out for way too long. Also, now I know where the ending for the 2010 live-action movie comes from.

Finished watching Space Battleship Yamato

Finished watching Space Battleship Yamato (2010, Robot Communications, 1hr 18mins) on 8/18/2015.

The year is 2199. Earth is faced with a major crisis. After being bombarded by the extraterrestrial Gamilas Empire with radio active meteors for years, Earth has started looking more like Mars, forcing humans to live underground. But they won’t give up without a fight as they revive battleship Yamato as a space battleship to fight against the threat and make their way to planet Iscandar where a technology was promised to cleanse planet Earth of the radiation.

7.5/10 – One thing with Leiji's franchises is that their content isn't consistent between each installment. This movie is no different. Well, to be fair the inconsistencies aren't that big of a deal. For example, in this movie, doctor Sado is played by a woman. A pleasant surprise considering the series tends to be a bit of a sausage fest. Their excuse being that all the female crew members have been put to sleep until the end of the voyage, except for Mori Yuki. Gotta have that love interest somehow, right? *coughkodaiyamamotocough* Just sayin', man! Also, Mori Yuki is now a Black Tiger squadron ace pilot instead of originally a radar operator & ship nurse. They also gave her a nice, heavy pair of metaphorical balls. I'm very much behind this. What bugged me a little is that they didn't make her blonde. I get it, Japanese people don't have the blonde gene (I think), but I would've appreciated at least a wig... or something... idk. The ending of the movie however was new to me. Not what happened in the original series. But what about the Gamilas? And Lord Desler? I was excited to see them on the screen... nope. Nothing. All you get are what I think are Gamilas androids. Or at least I don't want to accept that they're Gamilas. I'm not sure. The movie didn't really explain. Heck, there supposedly was even a large ship the Yamato destroyed, but they didn't even show it. But getting back to the Gamilans, the only actual person I saw was a Desler made of water... or something. Kinda looked like him. But it was hard to tell since he was so transparent. Okay, how about Iscandar's Starsha, huh? Gosh, I don't really know how to explain this, but I guess now I realize Gamilans are these weird, floaty crystal things, and Starsha (also being a Gamilan, apparently) goes inside Yuki Mori so as to speak through her. The movie was still interesting, despite all these odd, new changes, and the production quality was good.