JB0

It isn't you. There's some depth to Basara desperately trying to claw its way through his thick skull, and it almost succeeds.

Honestly, I kind of like ALL the original series destroids. Certainly, I hve favorites, but they're all just cool.

Defenders and Spartans too.

That would've been the SMART thing to do. I think we already established I didn't do the smart thing. I thought of that too, actually. He gets promoted in episode 20(which means Burst Point wasn't really a BAD start, continuity-wise), and he's still in his 1A when next seen flying in episode 22. He's got a VERY brief pass in 23 that ... it looks like he's flying a 1A in more-or-less Skull One colors when I freeze-frame it. From below, so the yellow markings aren't visible(resolution here's not good enough to check the tailfin tops difinitively{clearly I need the BluRays}, but I suspect they're white), but... yeah. Not a hint of blue on it. Picture attached, because why not. I will assume episode 24 is simply the point at which his 1J was ready/all that blue paint finished drying.

Naw, Roy's too cool to die. Betcha it's that Ben Dixon fellow.

Arpeggio and Redline are both really darn fun.

If that is the level we have to aspire to, then a third of all games in existence are ripping it off. May as well complain that they both use a single button to fire the gun. Probably even the same button.

A Hydorah remake? Rad! Locomalito's in the big leagues now!

They don't say why he, or anyone else, gets a custom paintjob. Hikaru got one, Max got TWO... Even Kakizaki got one, bless his uncreative heart. "Change some of the brown to white! That'll do it!" Ah, here we are! Episode 24, Goodbye Girl. Misa is returning to Earth, and he's running escort in his brand-new, freshly-blued 1J. I spot-checked every episode from 19 to 24 to find this. Because I guessed way wrong. (And why I started with friggin' Burst Point is anyone's guess. RIP Kakizaki. ) And right after this episode is the video arcade, the infamous knife fight, and the wedding. So my initial gut instinct of "Same time he gets hitched" was closer than my second guess, given it is only shown once before the marriage. Woulda made for a strange wedding gift, though.

You misunderstand. We want to see a mecha-snuff film with MONSTERS in it. IT IS NATURAL IN ANIME WORLD!

Ahhhh, so that is what happened. I had it as a kid, and to my youthful eyes it was BLATANTLY obvious that the design was intended to transform, so I was always curious as to what happened. ... I think I've actually seen one modded to transform before. If I still had mine, I'd give it a crack.

Dangit, I was about to do that!

The Matchbox toy was fighter-only. And had a huge cockpit bulge. ("that's what she said" joke goes here) They also had the "joke machines" under license. My first VF was a Max Sterling 1S JM.

I haven't finished Samus Returns. By the metroid sensor, I'm about halfway there(and sick to death of alpha metroids! Where are all the gammas?!). I EXPECT something about the X in the ending, much as AM2R did. Given the metroids were implied to be artificially created in Return of Samus, one would assume the X are as well(hooray out-of-control bioweapon programs!). But then, Fusion's plot demonstrated a distinct lack of familiarity with all aspects of Return of Samus. That implication is likely going to be ejected for Samus Returns anyways.

Ah, right. Multiple bills in the air and it is all a matter of WHICH bills are paid and which are being argued over.

So, I feel I've experienced enough at this point to offer an opinion on Samus Returns. And it gets a dual score. As an action-adventure, exploratory platformer game... 6/10. It is fun, but that fun is tempered by unfathomably terrible level design that makes getting from point A to point B feel like a chore, and with an emphasis on backtracking for backtracking's sake(exceptionally bizarre given the game's pedigree). This problem is aggravated by they hyper-aggressive enemies that want nothing more than to rush into Samus and kill her to death, making every six feet of travel a battle, if not a hard one. I am having fun in spite of the glaring flaws, so as much as I want to rake it over the coals and let loose the flaming vitriol(for reasons I will discuss shortly), I can't really justify it if we approach it on its own merits. Now, here's the other part: how does it stack up as a Metroid 2 remake? Well, let me lay out my case here... Metroid 2 is a thoughtful, considered, and well-paced game that attempts to do a couple of things, and has two major stories presented in addition to the manual's stated "Metroids are too dangerous to live, Samus kill them all and free us from this menace!". 1: Every game tells you how dangerous metroids are, how just a handful can completely destroy a planet's ecosystem. Metroid 2 SHOWS you. The further into the game, the fewer and more durable the enemies become. The last areas feature no non-metroid life. The metroids are burning SR-388 to the ground in their rampage. Their implied intelligence only makes them more dangerous. Wait, intelligent? Yeah, that is strongly implied in Metroid 2's endgame, with the metroids laying traps for you, and some MYSTERIOUS FORCE(the queen metroid) making an attempt to destroy the ice beam, and it is all but directly stated in Super Metroid's finale, when the hatchling sacrifices itself to save Samus from Mother Brain. So... let's move on to the second story now. It's the meatier one anyways. 2: Early metroids are found just laying out in hallways on the main path, or in chambers right off it. They know no fear, and sleep wherever they want because nothing is a threat to them. As you move through the caverns of SR-388 laying waste to everything you see, they start nesting in thornbushes, little maze-y rooms, and nooks in cliff faces hundreds of feet up in the air. Like they are prey, like the deadliest creatures in the galaxy fear something. The penultimate area, they don't nest at all. Two of the three metroids in the area you find off the main path again. Empty rooms with one exit. The metroids spawn right next to the wall farthest from the exit, and they spawn facing the wall, not you. And then you realize... the metroids DO fear something. They fear YOU. They were hiding from YOU. Those last metroids were RUNNING AWAY, and Samus hunted them down, backed them into a corner, and executed them with ruthless efficiency. "That bounty hunter is out there. She can't be bargained with. She can't be reasoned with. She doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And she absolutely will not stop... ever, until you are dead." And in the final area, after you've slaughtered all the metroids but for one, you enter the hallway to the queen metroid's chamber and it has a keening howl reverberating through it. It is unmistakably alien in form, but also... sorrowful, somehow. The queen is the last of her kind, and she weeps for her slain children, murdered in cold blood. And then you fill her head with enough high explosives to level a small continent. Mission completed, take pride in a job well-done, hunter. Samus is committing genocide for a paycheck. There's no sugar-coating this. That is literally the stated goal of the game. Metroids don't have any means of travelling space. They leave SR-388 only at the insistence of other species who come in their spaceships. They just want to be left alone in their caves, living their simple indolent lives of sleeping and eating, and here Samus comes in loaded for bear and starts blowing the hell out of them because some pirates robbed an archeologist that one time. Who in this story is truly the monster? Even if the metroids DO need to die, it is not a mission one should take pride in. It is an ugly and hateful job, and should rightly weigh on the soul of those charged with it. And weigh on Samus it does, as at the very end she adopts the infant hatchling, feeds it, and takes it away with her. One tiny chink her her merciless armor, a moment of sympathy at the end. ... And then Super Metroid undoes it all. She took the hatchling as a lab sample, and gave it over to scientists to experiment on. Shoulda just killed it, woulda been kinder. Whoops. Samus Returns is a brash, loud, and clumsy title that tries to tell one very different story. The metroids aren't doing crap to SR-388. It is a lush world full of life even very deep. Hell, they aren't even the most dangerous creatures on the planet. And Samus is a heroic badass rockin' her big-budget action-film moves through the caves, killing the scourge of the galaxy(and everything else in her way), harvesting their entrails, and offering them up as sacrifices at chozo altars(No, really). And between the general lack of threat and the sprawling, disorganized map, it really feels like killing metroids is incidental to Samus' looting of the ruins for cool toys and epic loot, they are but a roadbump on her Indiana Jones-style pillaging. There's precious little to praise here, and this is as far from a thoughtful and respectful remake as possible. It is more like it is actively pissing on everything Metroid 2 does. NEGATIVE TEN OF TEN.

Isn't that literally the entire basis of the current case, HG suing Tatsunoko for not paying them?

Someone with a sense of the awesome. ... Or who had played a LITTLE too much Super Mario Kart. Rainbow Milky Road. Either way, if they can project a forcefield roadway, it stands to reason they can also project a forcefield "tunnel"

Yes. Exactly this. You win the internet for a day.

As I recall, it was planned longer, then edited shorter because the sponsors wouldn't back the full run length, and then extended out again when the sponsors were all "This is selling like hotcakes we want more!"

Congratulations on regaining control of your work.

:'(

And then Tatsunoko didn't pay the money the arbitrator granted to HG. That may hurt their case.

Honestly? I'd downvote myself if I could. Just for the laugh. ... Can I? Edit: nope.

Macross: It's less stupid than all those other robots.