The blu-ray looks a lot better than the tv broadcast version. Whether it's simply clearer, sharper visuals of very pretty girls, or like I suspect the blu-rays actually added in tons of new animation and detail, regardless the final season of Wake Up, Girls! is now viable.
There are still awkward scenes where the camera is fixated on a cabinet or something as everyone talks, or entire episodes are slow pans of still frames. I admit it, this series was made on a shoestring budget. But when they wanted something to look good it really did look good. Like the dance concerts, they're gorgeous. Some of the best cg work I've seen. And for all these technical problems, the actual plot and dialogue and characters are as appealing as ever. We can't forget that the same lovable people in the rest of the series are still here in this season.
Ordinarily, if a show isn't filler, it should be included in the great episode count of a great franchise. But the makers of Shin Shou were in fact different from the makers of the original, so arguably it was filler. Before the blu-rays I leaned one way and after the blu-rays I've leaned another. After this third viewing I'm now confident in chalking 12 more eps to Wake Up, Girls! fame. Now all of WUG is must-see.
So far I've singled out 34 songs from Octopath Traveler as prospects for my music hall of fame. However, now that all my other prospects are at 80+ playthroughs, the Octopath songs have a long ways to catch up. Only once they have can I formally introduce them, and I wouldn't be surprised if many were cut before then. 34 is a huge haul though. I'm surprised. When I played the game, it didn't feel like the music was that good. I think what happened is there was so much music in the game that only half of it was good, but even half of it was still 34 tracks. That could give you a distorted perception of the quality of the music. Combine Xenoblade 1 and 2 and you only get 35 tracks in my hall of fame, so if Octopath really pulls it off with 34 songs to itself that's amazing. I have to admit this game really does have one of the best soundtracks ever.
I'd never heard of Yasunori Nishiki before, but if he really gets 34 songs into my hall of fame he'll be one of my favorite composers of all time. The Xenoblade games had music from tons of different people, but Nishiki did all of Octopath himself. Considering all the varied characters and settings, the range of his music which captured all of the atmosphere for those places is fantastic.
In To Heart2, I finished Sasara's route. This is one of Ryoko Ono's only roles other than Mirajane, so I was keen to play it. Sasara also has the perfect body, in her black dress she's fit for the Louvre. But her actual personality is a letdown. She has all sorts of mental disabilities and is interested in dumb things like slugs and jellyfish. Spending time with her would be a high-maintenance chore outside of sex, hardly the stuff of dreams.
Bravely Default II plays a lot like Octopath Traveler, you can tell it's by the same developer. The music so far is excellent but the claymation graphics are weird and as bad as Octopath in its own way. Why can't they make games like Dragon Quest XI, good looking and turn based? Why is DQXI the only sensible game?
The new summer season of anime is hours, not even days away. Kanojo mo Kanojo will get to appear in my rankings only two days from now. I wonder how much of the manga they'll actually cover? The new chapters are so great, I hope they somehow get to them. . . I'll of course be writing a summer anime first impressions post once enough shows have aired.
No comments:
Post a Comment