JB0

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.

Trolls gonna troll. At least this is a pretty innocuous form of trolling.

In fairness, for as long and as loud as HG was shouting about how their license was for exclusive worldwide rights to the entire franchise, it isn't surprising there is still confusion. That is about the size of it, yes. HG will no longer have the content licenses needed to distribute Robotech, but they will retain copyright to their work. Robotech DVDs will almost certainly increase in value. ... Of course, I would've expected the "unremastered" version with the original sound effects to have increased in value and I don't think that happened.

Concession to jet mode, I'd wager. They look like they are colored for a lit thruster effect when closed, like the rest of the nozzles.

Honestly, I think the space chopper's biggest problem is the blades are too high. Jetfighter-wings go through the center of mass(more or less), it makes them work well as attitude thruster booms in all three axes. A helicopter's blade assembly is ABOVE the center of mass, and it makes it kind of wonky for anything other than straight up or down. It'd be better if the booms were lower, so they were aligned with the center of mass instead of above it. And if you rotate them 90 degrees after that you can stick your main engines there and... oh, hey, you have Babylon 5's Starfury. Whoops, that was (mostly) unintentional! For realistic spaceships, something like the Starfury is probably where it's at. Better yet, go for the blatantly obvious big brother and get a "real" Gunstar. It gets far enough from the concept of airfoils to stop looking like a weird airplane, and the big "wings" it does have are credible as missile or reaction mass stores. Also, monster attitude thrusters mounted directly on the main engines(and presumably tapping their large thrust-generating potential) so it can make rapid changes in orientation(See: deathblossom). But, of course, the AJAC isn't a space-helicopter. It turns into a derpy-looking fighterjet for spaceflight. But hey, in space no one cares how poor your aerodynamics or how slight your wings. And in atmosphere... helicopters don't seem to need great aerodynamics either, based on how real ones look. So all this analysis was really just a pointless exercise in establishing Gunstar supremacy. A noble cause.

Of course. How foolish of me. Gotta mount the case of Bud somewhere! Subjective is what matters most. I don't think the AJAC really crosses the "degrees of silly" threshold, it's just that for many of us it is an uninspiring machine from an uninspiring show, and that means the usual suspension of disbelief doesn't kick in because we don't really WANT to like it. And trying to justify it beyond aesthetics and lack of emotional attachment leads to arguments like "space helicopters are stupid but space fighter jets make great sense" and "That is a total partsformer because it has swingarms". I also think the REALISM of the VF series helps a lot. They look like actual friggin' planes in plane mode, whereas the AJAC looks like a collection of panels and parts stacked up to look sort of like a helicopter if you squint... though it is far from the worst offender in that regard, and actually has some charm to it outside of robot mode(which I think is the weakest of the three modes, mostly due to that large, flat, boring plate covering the entire torso). (And I still occasionally smack my hands together and pull them apart like I'm gettin' my sword ready, though it has been a long time since I shouted "form blazing sword". Voltron is still awesome, even if he IS objectively ridiculous. The Defender of the Universe still lives in my heart.)

Ripley Protocol it! Sure! "Harmony Gold is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop... ever, until you are dead. " Or it is, you all know how the movie ends.

I was going to go to the VF-1, actually. Same argument applies to flight without wings.

If you think about it the "transforming robot" is dumb. So let's not think about it. Space helicopter is an awesome idea. So is robot hovertank.

The big thing is the books insisted the neural interface was in the helmet and you couldn't operate a veritech without on. Needless to say, that "rule" collapses rapidly in the animation. Which is a shame, because it isn't a terrible idea(see Macross Plus). Certainly not as bad as all the flower of life/protoculture nonsense.

Well, she DID stab Q with a fork that one time... I've seen it before too, though I couldn't peg where it originated. It'd definitely be a traditional retcon, though. Guinan's character was created YEARS before anyone thought of the nexus. Guinan is a time lord? That is as good an answer as any, and there's probably two dozen fanfics over the years exploring the possibility. I think the original intent was mostly just supposed to be that her species had a "sixth sense" for transdimensional nonsense.