Reviews by PCA

Thanks character limiter. You ruined my title!!

I love Sekiro, but is not quite the game that it could have been, or that I would have hope it would be. There are some issues that I mostly don’t care about, but some that I do, and the ones I don’t care about don’t affect me, but maybe they should, like the lack of combat options.

I just like deflecting.

I mean, the combat system is great, I love it, I’ll deflect night and day, is hot! But there is a surprising lack of combat arts and prosthetics and actual quality to said prosthetics. In my case, I barely use them, they are mostly boring, to be honest. I ended the game with 998 spirit emblems, so, you know.

I’m trying to use them more in newer playthroughs, but they barely make a difference and there is a reason I never felt attracted to them. They are not very useful in important moments or most boss fights. You’ll have a better time using your emblems for Mortal Draw or something like that.

In my case: I used the axe in Hirate state and never again, the shurikens against the shooters surrounding the spear general the first 3 tries and never again. I beat Gyoubu third try without the firecrackers because I totally miss them. I would have use them otherwise, the firecrackers are actually god. The spear never. The flame barrel only with the chained ogre. Mist Raven fucking never, although, it does look cool. You can just dodge, tho.

I did use the Umbrella against Albino Ape, because I’m not running away like a bitch from the terror bullshit. Like seriously, terror? Terror? Instant dead? Really? I’m fighting the fuck, I’m clearly not that scared. I´m face to face with the headless, trading blows like a boss.  I’m not fucking scared! Ter… Ok, just lest move on.

I did use malcontent for Demon of Hatred, because it is the most dogshit fight in the whole game and I wanted it to be over as fast as possible. I mean, I did not choose Sekiro to be fighting like fucking Dark Souls. I… I really hate that fight. I mean, an hour or so is not that long for that fight, I guess, but I was annoyed and bored the whole time. I tried to deflect and have fun but I keep getting burn and I just…

Isshin did make it up for it, tho, thanks the heavens.

And that’s it. Not much use to them. I mean, I upgraded them because I have to, too much money and nothing to use it with, and the ones I actually wanted, were, for some reason, not available unless I upgraded another one that I didn’t actually want to use. WHY? Why are the prosthetics an interconnecting tree? Is annoying.

Anyway, is a universal truth that people only consistently use the firecrackers and that’s it.

The game is not long enough to justify the upgrades for the prosthetics

No smoke bomb prosthetic?

The “best” combat arts are unlocked way to fucking late to actually care or matter for your first gameplay, and the lack of replayability and actual usefulness of said combat arts makes it not really worth the grind to get them unless you just want to experiment. At the end of the day, you will just go back to Ichimonji, because is God. If I beat the game, just gift me the fucking things or at least make a special boss to win an exp box or something.

And why not add the possibility of changing the arts mid fight? Cool combos can arise from that.

Stealth is worthless, enemy reaction is dumb as fuck. The dead bodies of their friends mean nothing to them. And am I crazy or it was supposed to be a mechanic when you hide the corpses to avoid detection? I could swear I saw that. Is half baked, is what I mean. You should deal with the consequences if you fuck up. Like, make it mean something, make it hard.

What else can I complain about? Oh, right. The Shura ending is kinda shit. Why not the Shura path rather? I mean, you make the decision, the game gets cut short, two special boss fights and that’s it. You allegedly go in a path of destruction and mayhem… I would have liked to play that… Like, killing the friends that you made along the game because you are now a killing machine that only cares about the euphoria of the fight, and you can feel both powerful and horrible. And maybe a new combat art tree only for the Shura, a shorter one, probably, but brutal and awesome. Let us feel how it is to be drowned in the horror of war.

I don’t know. Maybe I ask too much.

What else?

Game is too short, specially fountainhead palace, such a beautiful place, over in a half an hour. Fucking LOL. The world does not feel big enough despite the many different places. I loved it to much, I want to spend more time in here.

Genichiro is annoying in the final game battle, but I would have like to fight him more times, as he gets more powerful and learns new shit and stuff, to keep it fresh. Like a whole story boss, you know?

The Bosses attack patrons could have been improved, more diverse and less repetitive. The Resurrection mod show me that.

There’s is also a lack of women enemies… Now I don’t say this a feminist thing, I just want to kill women…

Difficulty: Boss fights. I think the bosses should try to recover their posture like the minibosses do, fuck, even some regular guys do that. I know is easy to disrupt, but they can do it when they are far away or when they stagger you, as punishment for fucking up your posture like a dumb fuck. I feel like it should be possible to code that when they are low on posture they do that, and only when you are low enough on health, they try to kill you after breaking you.

Gyobu’s fight makes no sense. He is supposed to be like a hardcore motherfucker, a very powerful warrior, but he is one of the easiest bosses. I know he is technically the first big boss, but he should be more punishing, at the very least in NG+

The first phase should either force you to deflect his attacks while you can only damage the horse, then the horse dies, and you fight him in the ground in phase two. That would train you hardcore on how to deflect consistently. Or, the horse dies, he eats him and transforms into a centaur that hits you with his giant d…

Isshin should recover posture if he hits you with the Ichimonji if you fail to deflect.

Anyway. NG+ after doing the Shura ending is kinda worthless. What’s the point of having seven opportunities?

If you finish the endings, you should install the Resurrection mod and play it again. Have fun relearning the bosses new moves, vastly different, more varied, way more aggressive, way more fun to deflect, way more effective at making you RAGE. Is Sekiro hard mode. PLAY IT.

That’s enough. This is getting long.

First playthrough is an 8.

Goodbye.

Alaoz!

Real talk: I saw an image of Maki Zenin from the manga and I was… “that’s a cool design”. Also, I’m the type of guy that would watch something just because there is a hot femme in it. So, it was obvious that I was going to give it a chance. Besides, the animation looks pretty, so why not?

Well, turns out there are a lot of reasons to say no.

The show actually started kind of okay, I mean, I liked it a bit, nothing special but enough to continue. The anime was lucky to have those first 6 episodes, cause, it got really shit afterwards. All of the shonen anime tropes yet again sometimes done worse than usual, which is funny because a character makes fun of tropey cliche horror movies. Talk about self-awareness.

Now, tropey or cliche is not bad by itself, is when writers don’t do even the bare minimum to make it their own. Like the story with the bullied kid, it happens in real life and everything, but the way that was done was almost exactly the fucking same that other bad animes that I seen: incredibly basic, exaggerated, pretentious, sort of nihilistic, very emo shit. What is the unique lens and perspective of the author? Who knows.

“People have no hearts” Is this kid retarded?

The answer is yes, since he thinks that the weird looking dude that brutally murdered some children for talking to loud in an empty movie theater is a good person. I know he’s biased, but Jesus fuck, man.

Now, at the very least that guy gets manipulated by a villain and that could be cool, but again, that was also, very, very, painfully basic. Also, the villain. I thought he was fucking dogshit at the beginning, he had a very common personality for anime villains, that exaggerated childish and bubbly behavior, contrasted by exaggerated sadistic behavior. But, he is a child, technically, so I guess it makes sense, also, he is born of just pure evil emotion. He is a main villain, so I would give him some leisure to develop and be better, but I won’t hold my breath, the anime hasn’t earned shit from me. I’m just extremely good faith sometimes…

That whole arc was boring as fuck, tho, super edgy, super shit. I almost quit.

But no, I stayed for the even more boring tournament arc. Now, I’m not gonna say much about that cause… why would I bother? I fell asleep.

That arc illustrates one of the worst aspects of this show: the sheer inability to correctly deliver information, and giving unnecessary information in bad times. In other words, the exposition is dogshit. And that is the central theme of my thesis…

Not only do characters explain shit outloud for no reason about their abilities and backstories in battle, but they also explain their abilities in internal monologues to… themselves? Like WTF? They do not only make that basic mistake of explaining what every character around already knows, but they also explain in their MINDS shit that they already know about themselves. That’s insane, do you understand?

“I can do this shit, and invoke this many motherfuckers to do this and that…” Who are you talking to, my dude? Stop it.

And they often do it in the middle of a battle, stopping the flow of said battle. That is not how you deliver information in an audiovisual medium. Why are the other characters listening to this shit? I thought you bitches were fighting.

Is the clumsiest and most artificial way of letting the audience know what’s happening or can happen with their powers. I’m not retarded, I can understand what’s happening by seeing it, you don’t need to tell me in the middle of the fight. You can explain later what is not self-explanatory or explain it before in a natural way. Or even during, that could be fine, but it has to be natural, it has to make sense.

“He used it as a decoy and released it?” Yes. I just saw it. Why are you telling me, close eyes? I saw it with my blood-filled eyes because you´re giving me cancer!

“Water? I’m being swept away by the volume and pressure?!” OMG, dude. I’m seeing it. Right now! Why are you narrating? What’s going on!?

I fucking hate that guy. Emo boy is no better, he explains part of his philosophy in the middle of the fight. Why? It doesn’t matter. Just punch him! That was annoying, but the monk guy? Oh, the monk guy…

“I’m doing this for my momma, I can’t lose”. Dude, shut your mind!! “I need to keep pretending” NOOOOOO.

Why are they telling me all the secret motivations for this people and the secret things that they are doing and thinking? Those things are plot twist, mysteries, revelations that allow you to see characters in a different light. But no, the show is allergic to these compelling things, instead opting for letting you know every single thing about them when is not fucking relevant. This is not the time!

What’s the point of Nobara remembering her friend? It means nothing to the story at hand and its just distracting. Just let us know that she REALLY wanted to leave her hometown and way later, when I give a shit and is important, explain why.

One last thing about that episode. I thought the point was to see what would she do in a dire situation like that, what hard choice would she make. But then the protagonist helps her, completely destroying said moment and… then what? I didn’t learn anything. She wasn’t force to act, it got cut so fast. What would she do? I don’t know.

Lost opportunity to learn her way of thinking. She does say something important in the final episode, but there’s no context as to how or why she got there, she just does, which is fine!! But is kinda underwhelming considering that early scene. Does that kid have a sit in her life? Humm.

The only one that matters is the twins story, the rest were not necessary at all. And even that one was bad, very poorly explain. Oh yeah, that’s also the thing, the show is very bad at backstories, they are always so short and vague and could be cut off and lose nothing. The only good one is the one from salaryman. Is was not important for the plot, but it did help to understand him more.

“Liar”, thought Mai.

I’m sorry, is she holding her sister accountable for what she said when she was like 6 years old? Fucking LOL.

Continuing with the unnecessary information in bad moments, another example is the evil brothers of the last arc. We fucking learn that they are at least part human BEFORE the main characters do, so instead of being shocked that they are not disappearing after death along with them, we already know, so it means nothing. The revelation is underwhelming.

Why tell me their origin story? Huh? Leave it for later, man. Is not important at the moment and it would be WAY more impactful if we learn it along with the characters. Stop telling me the backstories like they're fucking TED Talks… And now that we are on that note. Stop explaining me stuff like a fucking PowerPoint presentation. The glasses guy randomly appears to explain things like the Rat in Horrible Histories. Is dumb.

Another example of unnecessary information in bad moments, is the old guy literally thinking to himself and remembering the evil secret plan he just hatched. My dude, my brother in Ala, can you please stop?

I would say tho, in good faith, it kinda works, cause, spoiler, his plan dies like immediately and is sort of SNK moment when the colossal titan reappears, you remember? When Eren is talking big shit and BOOM, surprise motherfucker!! Kinda like that.

Still, is really dumb. I could and should have happen in real time, like with the meeting, because yeah, is not illegal to not have a mystery or secret plan in certain moments, that’s not what I saying, is just that the show does it all the time. It happens the way that it happens not because is more effective, but because that’s the only way the show knows how to deliver information.

So, that’s my special issue with this show, is probably the worse anime I ever seem in the exposition department. It damages everything it touches. That’s the only reason I wrote this review, because I’m not only complaining yet again about a shonen being cliche crap.

I still think the show has potential, but that could only be my thirst for Maki speaking.

There are some okay stuff, like Todo. I actually… don’t hate him. He was really shit at the beginning, but he actually has an interesting way of seeing stuff. Besides the retarded “what type of women do you like?”, he’s obsession with the idol (that only works for Shinpachi), and his ridiculous personality, he has cool standards for what a friend should be, and he would let you die if you don’t fulfill that. That’s actually interesting.

I’m hopeful for Maki as well.

And that’s it.

3/10.

PD: I bloody hate Kamo.

PD2: What is up with those after credits scenes? You’re not Gintama, show, you’re not that funny.

With the thirteenth Doctor we have a Doctor that killed someone for no reason and let go free a killing AI, to then say that systems are never actually problematic and it just people, which is just plain wrong. She also supported a super corporation without knowing all about them, which were a bunch of fuck up shit, totally contrary to the moral principles of the Doctor. She does nothing to remediate this. All of that in one shitty episode (Kerblam!). 

She is also a Doctor with a childish view on guns, so against shooting, that she champions slowly suffocating and starving to dead as a more moral option (Arachnids in the UK). A Doctor that embodies a fundamental misunderstanding of the gun principle (The Ghost Monument) so much that she won’t let you defend yourself against killer robots with a gun even tho under her own moral system, it is okay to attack them because they can be repair.

She is a Doctor that’s okay with stasis, being trap in the cusp of life and death, when she originally was totally against it. (The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos).
How incredibly obscene, right?

She also comes up with unnecessary dangerous solutions to very easy problems (Resolution). Just take the Dalek of him with your hands!!! She almost kills that guy. 

But that’s not the end, she is also a Doctor who is apparently ok with someone being mistreated and possibly torture because of the color of their skin (Spyfall part 2). She also forgot to save her friends life, by the way. Needed to be reminded of it.

A Doctor that abandons two people she could easily save because she prefers to give a speech to characters who already agree with her (Orphan 55). 

And she is a Doctor who abandons her friend to suffer emotionally alone because is too awkward (Can you hear me?).

She is a Doctor that chose her own life above someone else. (The Timeless Children). Organic genocide is fine if someone else does it, I guess. Tenth was on a similar position with Donna's grandfather, and he chose to die and save him. Cause that’s what the Doctor would do!! Damn it Chibnall, you are a fan of this show!! WHY?

And she is a Doctor that sacrificed a Tardis, a living being for all we know of them; they have consciousness.

AND, AND, she is a Doctor that committed TRIPLE, not double like the War Doctor, but TRIPLE genocide… for no reason!!! There was no reason that would have work, and it didn’t. A Passenger was necessary to end the FLUX. She is so stupid, that for some reason, she thought that tree fleets would be enough to stop a force design to eat the fucking universe. No doubt while doing it, no remorse after it. What in the actual fuck?

Superficially she seems to be the Doctor, but the meat of it is rotten. She did not let Yaz in, never got a proper resolution to the revelation of her past lives, never learn from her mistakes o dealt with anything actually morally grey. She learned nothing as a person, and so did her companions. What a worthless and empty era. So glad is fucking over. What an absolute waste of Jodie and the first female Doctor. Is probably his fault that we have a man again so soon. Goddamnit, Chibnall!

That’s it.

Alaoz!

PS: Watch The Haunting of Villa Diodati, only time she truly feels like the Doctor.

INTRO

I just rewatch the show in Netflix and I wanted to share the review I wrote 4 years ago because there are some people who haven't watch it yet, which is wrong, and those people do not deserve happiness until they do.

Now, there’s one issue… just a tiny one. Season 2 isn’t out yet and I been waiting a while for it now and… maybe this year. Yes. This year.

Now, the first time I saw this show it absolutely shattered my world. 

“It did what?” 

Shattered my world!! 

I fucking loved it so much. I still do, it just wasn’t as powerful all around the second time, but still pretty fucking good.

This is a short one, as I don’t want to spoil much.

START

Signal is a drama-detective show, a procedural where a detective from the present communicates with a detective from the past and together they solved “cold cases” which are cases that happened in the winter. They use a radio for this. Now, you might be thinking that the cases are solved easily because of this, but you would be wrong. They can only communicate for around a minute or so and the cases are solved by good old-fashioned police work, sometimes mundane police work, the boring stuff that is usually not shown, but here is never really boring. Don’t ask me how, Kim is a magician ... God, I love her.

Anyway. Where was I?

Minimal spoilers incoming!

TIMEY WIMEY STUFF

Right. The timey wimey stuff is mostly there to kick start the case, to make it possible, to give it a gentle push, but is never used in a cheap way to solved the case when they hit a wall.

Part two of that is the butterfly effect and all that jazz. Now, writing time travel is usually a very bad idea because it is so hard to do correctly, to make it make sense, but, after years of Doctor Who, I don´t really care that much at this point. Is a flaw, but at the end, if is not that egregious, that obviously wrong that it is stupid, I can be fine with it if the rest is good. And the rest of Signal is very good. The time stuff is good too, I think.

I mean, the outcome is always bittersweet. They might save a person by solving the case or interrupting the killer, but another person dies as a consequence. Someone’s life is always getting fuck no matter what. There’s a point when they even regret doing the thing because so much shit went wrong and they almost quit. There’s a balance, an equilibrium that grounds the stakes and creates powerful drama. Some of that shit even impacts the main characters directly. One thing goes right, another gets wreck.

In terms of making sense, it kind of does. Is a very small “effect location”. I mean, is not impacting stuff in a big way, it does not care about the whole fabric of history and shit, only the lives of the characters related to the case, and how those changes impacted their existences, emotionally and physically. Is quite tight and small in scale, I didn’t notice crazy stuff going on, is all very minimized to avoid said butterfly problems and focus on the good stuff.

I only remember one moment that was kind of weird, because a character almost quits, but the reason it does not do that is because it gets advice from someone else, but that someone only gives the advice cause of future shit. But it can just be that originally there was another reason to stay and I pretty sure that I know what that is xD

Oh, and of course, the very basis of the show is... problematic, it seems to be a paradox, a sort of causal loop. But I mean, the show is not over so...  I trust in Kim.

Lastly, I´m not sure if they are following a rule like Doctor Who with time being in constant flux, capable of changing in “real time” at every point, or a more cause and effect straight line. There’re glimpses of the first one, tho. At least a similar one.

TECHNICAL STUFF

Now, the show has long episodes, but shit is always happening, case stuff and character stuff, learning about them in the past and present, their values and histories, and other present stuff beyond the immediate plot, and … uff.

Both timelines, both plots are happening at the same time in screen. Somehow, is not confusing, because is so competently weaved together that… god I love Kim so much. Writing and directing are on point. The transitions from thing to thing are fucking seamless, is just crazy good storytelling, crazy good television. Always keeps you engaged and trust you to get it and doesn’t explain stuff to you. The acting greatly helps with that.

Is so obvious compare to … I’m also rewatching the Thirteenth Doctors era because I hate myself, and my dad wants to see it anyway. They tell you the traits and conflicts of the characters to your fucking face! Not here, my darling, is all told to you thought filmmaking and acting, as is supposed to be.

Sorry for the detour, I just truly hate… Back to the review.

The cases last more than one episode because of this, is not solely focus on the crime, but in politics and character exploration. Now, there’s a bad side of this, episodes sometimes do not end when the case is over, so, you might want to rest and think about what you just saw, but the fucking thing keeps going. I guess it depend of what you like.

Lastly, the acting is fantastic, so much that a simple and basic character of a grieving mother is so powerfully portrait that you forget she’s not real and truly believed is a non-acting human being crying in front of you. She barely says anything, barely has anything beyond "someone kill my child and I'm sad" in the very few scenes she gets, and is still gut-wrenching seeing her pain.

I’m just saying that I usually don’t care when is just that, but damn.

The music is kinda meh. I used to criticize the repetitiveness of it, but now I feel that gives it that memorable touch, I mean, you hear the music and you immediately think of Signal. It could have achieved that in a different way, with more of a unique sound, but I don’t care that much. I don’t particularly like the sad one, tho, is kinda shit.

The directing is REALLY fun. I don’t think is unique of the show, in fact, is not, but I have never notice it as much in other shows or movies (Memento?). Is not a thing they use a couple of times, is a constant thing, every episode, and is tied to the time stuff.

Is simple, there’s basically a whole scene, but you don’t get to see the whole thing at once, you get little bits of the scene, or the scene from a particular character perspective, or just enough of the scene that is related to the current events or the knowledge the show wants you to have at that particular moment.

For example, you see a character escaping, and then, later, you see how exactly did he escape. So, if you thought that that was to easy, you learn that no, every little detail was well thought of and the show does not take easy routes.

You see a scene and think: “Well, that was all of it, surely”, and then, episodes later, you see even more of it and you´re like: “Oh shit, it was worse that it seemed”. That also applies to seeing a condensed version of the scene, as if it were a “previously in”, with all the heavy hitting moments highlighted, and then watching the whole of the events that feel like a knife slowly reopening the wound.

You might think I’m crazy for hyping a very common narrative style or technique, but its use in Signal is masterpiece levels. This capacity of creating tension, intrigue and “oh shit” when you get more context that makes a previous scene even stronger, a character more complex or tragic, or simply rewards your capacity to remember what happened, is glorious. Is a great back and fourth from present to past that makes everything more entertaining and elevates its content.

THEME

Is quite simple: Perseverance, never losing hope, corruption of people and the injustice of the world in which the rich and powerful get away with dark shit. “Is the way of the world, there’s nothing you can do”. Is a serious show, but it has a lot of moments of relaxation. It shows horrible people, but also very nice people, and grey too. It has people that never compromised their values, good examples to imitate, but it also has people who gave all that up for money and moving higher in the ladder.

So, the complexity of the human being is correctly explored.

I would have like to see more exploration of the morality of changing the past and stuff. But maybe later.

CHARACTER

Lastly but not least, actually, is the most important thing: Character.

They are very good, okey? Fucking great.

They have defined and different personalities that touches even the way they talk, they are quite human, they make mistakes, get carried away by their emotions, show every range of human emotion, and have views fuel by their experiences. And at least the most important ones, you get to know them well both as people and as professionals (things from their past, their relationships and feelings). They don’t get character development in “real time” but they all had it.

They are not the most original thing in the world, they are born of common archetypes in police stories, but they are so well constructed and portrait that they come to life. They are also not like real police, real cops are just doing a job, they don’t really care that much about justice and shit, in the show they really do. Soo-hyun says that you don’t really get use to seeing a dead body, but real detectives get desensitize real quick. And is fine they went with that, not everything has to be The Wire.

My favorite of the three main ones is Lee Jae-han, the detective from the past, he is simply excellent: he’s idealistic, kind, a real-life hero, a very smart, competent and noble men, but also has his flaws as a person, he is hotheaded, brash, rude, basically socially incompetent, he’s also very eager to get himself kill, and surprisingly insensitive. He is a deeply emotional and sensitive men, but he can really be an asshole sometimes, although is mostly cause he’s kinda dumb in that department. He is also very aggressive and loud, but so sweet too.

God damn, I love that guy.

The bad thing is that the majority of the criminals are just cunts, so, they are not particularly complex. The show makes it up for it with the rest of the characters around and inside the case, but still. 

I have more criticisms that the first time, in the more objective mark, I think is an 8/10.

But, in my heart, is still a 9/10.

Will I ever get to see season 2? Azathoth only knows.

That’s it.

Alaoz!