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Star #16: =Don Dracula= Through the ages: Don Dracula manga, anime, Marine Express See him in action: DON DRACULA EPISODE 1, MARINE EXPRESS ---------- Read “Don Dracula” HERE, I got no clue who made it but if IT WAS YOU then tell me I guess? ---------- Tezuka character list bio: Number 38  - Prime Minister of Mu. He is secretly aiming to take over as king. He was a main character in [the] self-titled comic which ran in “Weekly Shonen Champion” from May 1979 to December 1979. He is a comical vampire who comes to Japan. The character he plays in this game is taken from his role in “Marine Express”. 8 episodes of an anime based on him were made, but it was canceled after 4 episodes. EARL DRACULA, the lord of darkness, TERROR of Transylvania, scourge of the night! From his blood-soaked castle resurrected to this world, his sole goal the conquest of human woman, this terror from the mists is…oh, wait, my bad, wrong picture, one sec…  Ah, there we go, much better. The stake cravat wasn’t in frame, sorry. Having lived in undeath and spread his vile shadow over the populace of Transylvania for some time, Dracula one day finds that his dark, ancient manor has been relocated to the heart of Japan…with him inside! Finding himself thrust into a foreign land overnight, he does what any sensible monster would do – cuts his losses, and heads out to find some nice Japanese women to kidnap and suck dry. Unfortunately for him, he is utterly incompetent at everything he attempts, and what follows is a series of darkly comical schemes (and subsequent failures) as the Earl tries his best to do his thing. While his series name is “Don Dracula”, pretty much every source lists his actual title as “Earl” – he may be a failure, but he IS of noble blood, after all. Dracula, obviously hailing from Bram Stoker’s oft-used work, shares many aspects of his character with his vampiric contemporaries, but with his…own twists. Rain weakens him…because his ancestral family’s all been deathly afraid of it! Garlic repels him…because it smells REALLY bad! Sunlight reduces him to ash…but he can be reconstituted with a mixture of blood and cola! He’s got the bark of a vampire, but ironically none of the bite; Drac’s thirsty for human blood, but not human life, and would sooner boogie it up at a disco than sulk around in his castle all night. He’s the butt of the jokes, the patsy in every slapsticky situation he’s involved in, and while he tries he damndest to be a good ol’ scary monster man it’s just not his style. PARENTING, however, seems to be more his speed.  Drac’s a family man, and in days past managed to get himself a cute little vampire/werewolf crossbreed daughter. Mom’s since run off, but even as a single dad, Drac’s going to do his best for his adorable little Chocola~. Living together with her, alongside their faithful butler Igor, the Dracula family sleeps by day and parties by night, getting into all sorts of comic mischief and trouble, including multiple spats with the persistent, if odd, vampire hunter Professor Hellsing…or at least Dracula senior does. Chocola’s a little smarter and more successful in her endeavors, blending in at a night school and feeding off both men and woman (but not classmates!) with far more success than her father, allowing her to act as an effective straight woman to the Earl’s antics. Still, the two are very close, and live in relative peace within their manor, relishing in their undeath.  “Don Dracula” only ran for three volumes over less than a year, and the anime was cut short due to the advertising agency in charge going under, but Osamu Tezuka was noted to have enjoyed writing the work, as he was looking for something different after his previous manga (the serious medicinally-focused Black Jack) and enjoyed writing this kind of slapstick comedy. And, to tell the truth, I actually rather like it myself; the juxtaposition of the monstrous Dracula and the bizarre Japan-themed antics he gets into are rather refreshing and entertaining in a very silly way. It almost feels like an anime version of The Munsters at times, with a family of supernatural creatures acting decidedly non-supernatural and just going about their day-to-day business. Some sections get a little too weird (Hellsing’s got chronic hemorrhoids, shits in Dracula’s coffin, and has to clean it out!), and it characterizes Drac as a little rapey while beating the old “ugly woman chasing an unwilling guy” horse to death, but at the same time all he really wants to do is suck some of their blood? My point is it’s really strange, and worth checking out because of that.  Despite his short-lived series, Dracula has shown up in a couple other works, most notably in a minor Marine Express role as the traitorous Chancellor Dondra of Mu. He’s a little more evil here, but no less incompetent, screwing up constantly and getting savagely beaten by his new master Sharaku post-betrayal of Sapphire. He’s roughed up up by Astro in the movie’s climax, but doesn’t appear to actually die, so perhaps he just buggers off somewhere else after his master Sharaku goes down? Finally, as a small note, Chocola actually got into the movie herself (in a more human-esque form) as the android daughter of Duke Red, Milly. She’s ended up cut in-game, presumably due to the facts that the Duke already has Nuka, that this version of the story doesn’t require her, and that Dracula is already a minor hidden character. His daughter’s needed to bring out the best in the old vamp, I suppose. Gamwhiz1 fucked around with this message at 03:41 on Apr 30, 2017 |
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Mar 18, 2015 19:50
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Star #17: =Rock= Through the ages: Manga, 2003, Metropolis, Marine express See him in action: 2003 EPISODE 34, MARINE EXPRESS Tezuka character list bio: Number 17  - Deadcross’s true identity. He plots against Rag for losing the election to him. He eventually makes a deal with Queen Sapphire of Mu. He first appeared often as the character “Rock Home.” His first villain role was “Makuberokuro” in “Vampire.” The name “Makuberokuro” comes from Shakespeare’s “Macbeth.” Rock also plays villains in “Alabaster” and “Phoenix/Future” and “2772.” He is great in “Metropolis”, with script by Katsuhirio Ohmoto in 2001. He plays the unusual role of a no-name writer in “Say Hello to Bookila!” He takes on a role the role [sic] of a comedic character, which is interesting.By now, you should be fairly familiar with the whole “Star System” concept – Tezuka’s habit of reusing the same character designs, personalities, and professions between works when a story role opens up they’d be suited for. He had a stable of “detective and police” characters, a collection of scientists of various specialties and ethical standing, bad guys, heroes, joke characters, animals, aliens, and more - when the opportunity arose, characters were liable to pop up in the background, jump between works, die, appear again, and continue their “careers” within the pages of Tezuka’s manga, each time maintaining their personal shtick, like a real-life actor typecast for a specific role. This holds true for most every recurring face. Rock is one of the very few exceptions.  Starting his career in much the same way as many of Tezuka’s other boy heroes, Rock Holmes starred in self-titled works like “Detective boy Rock Holmes” and “The Adventure Of Rock”, where he shared his name’s origin with a few other characters we’ve already been introduced to. His roles were fairly typical, good-guy protagonist types wherein Rock traveled about, solving mysteries and resolving conflicts as he went, looking for adventure and maintaining a childish sense of wonder and curiosity the whole time. They weren’t particularly unusual stories, and Rock himself wasn't particularly notable, but as the boy continued to appear, something began to set them apart: unlike some of his contemporaries, like Astro and the as-of-yet only mentioned Kenichi, Rock’s tales often began to delve deeper into hardship, bitterness, and the potential evil of humanity, taking the boy along for the ride.  Where Astro and Co. tend to lead stories in which the triumph of good vs. evil is very much assured, and morality is very much black and white, in Rock’s tales, justice is not all powerful, and evil often snatches victory from the jaws of defeat. In “The Adventures of Rock”, it’s only with a peace-seeking Rock’s death that a war between species he unwittingly set off is ended and peace is gained, while in “Nextworld/Fumoon”, the young man is forced to bear witness to the world at its worst, and is changed because of it. His is a decidedly bitter chain of appearances, and it leads to one of the most unique character developments I’ve ever seen: Rock grows up, slowly and steadily, between works and over many years…  …and it leaves him a villain. Starting with “The Vampires” in 1966, and peaking with “Alabaster” in 1970, Rock Holmes shifts into Makube Rokuro (a name derived from “Macbeth” and the Japanese word for black combined with Rock), a jaded and embittered young man without a trace of the boyish innocence he once possessed. Donning a pair of dark sunglasses, which together with his shiny forelock has become something of a defining trait for him, Rock becomes a ruthless villain, a killer, a racist, a raving narcissist, and even a rapist. He’s a man bent and twisted by his experiences, both in his past appearances and in his relevant backstories; Rock retains his protaganistic charisma, looks, skill, and often even his position of detective or high-ranking officer, but uses them to serve his own purposes and ends. He’s a force for evil masquerading as one for good, the corrupt law enforcer seeking out the evil killer, the likable presidential candidate deceiving the population to earn his position – he’s a dynamic character, fully confident in himself even as he leaves destruction in his wake, and it leaves him one of the most representative characters within the entirety of Tezuka’s works. Rock Homes is eternally memorable in any of his roles, be it the unfortunate young boy or the man you love to hate, and has in so doing earned himself a prominent position within many fan’s hearts.  While the original Marine Express movie uncharacteristically cast him in a role more befitting his younger, less warped self, in works created after Osamu Tezuka’s death, Rock’s character tends to be a mix of good and evil, a fitting result of such a stark development in personality. To this end, his self in-game starts out the narcissistic, self-serving masked Deadcross before transitioning to a redemption of sorts in the Mu section, choosing (as in the movie) to stay behind in the dying civilization and attempt to revive it. This kind of redemption also appears in works like Metropolis (2001), where he appears as a ruthless member of the Marduk party, gunning his way through innocents and acting as primary antagonist until he sacrifices himself for his adoptive father, and in his appearance in the 2003 anime, where he starts off a self-serving thief and crook before learning the error of his ways and submitting to arrest a changed man. It’s an interesting continuation of his legacy, which, while not entirely faithful to Tezuka’s original characterization, provides a plausible conclusion to his character arc. It’s a bit controversial though, as he never appeared in the original Metropolis and his episodes in the 2003 anime are kinda unfocused and silly. On that note, Rock’s actually not all that common a player in Astro Boy stories; he appeared in small roles in boy-form within the stories Führer ZZZ and Ivan the Fool, but was replaced with other characters in the earlier animated adaptions and never really took center stage. It’s nice to see him here, though, as his importance within the Star System really can’t be understated. Gamwhiz1 fucked around with this message at 03:42 on Apr 30, 2017 |
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Mar 20, 2015 23:42
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Rock is an interesting character and his arc in Metropolis is one the things I like most about that film. That and "I can't stop loving you."
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Mar 21, 2015 17:39
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I like that there's different takes on the same characters so you can switch between them through the course of the game. It is a pretty cool take on the Star System concept. Speaking of which... Wow, Rock is grim. 
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Mar 22, 2015 13:33
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Postin' to prevent archiving - I'm working on this actively, pretty much every day, but College finals + new job + this being probably the biggest drat update I'm gonna have in this LP are working against me here, there's a lot to cover. Your understanding is appreciated, this thing IS going to be finished, I promise you that, and when that day comes you can just binge everything in one go. When I do reach that point I'll dump the ridiculous amount of reference images I've taken and summaries I've written and everything else that makes these updates take a lifetime to get out. Basically I'm slow and I'm sorry for being slow and please don't hate me for being slow STOP HATING ME I SAID
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May 13, 2015 03:58
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Gamwhiz1 posted:Basically I'm slow and I'm sorry for being slow and please don't hate me for being slow STOP HATING ME I SAID As long as it gets picked back up when life isn't screaming in your ear about reasonable priorities, you don't have anything to worry about.
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May 13, 2015 05:29
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If only you had some way to travel through time to get everything done quickly... 
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May 13, 2015 05:54
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Choco1980 posted:If only you had some way to travel through time to get everything done quickly... We could look into converting the Channel Tunnel to do it.
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May 14, 2015 09:23
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Thanks for such a cool thread so far, Gamwhiz, but you get your business settled first. I look forward to whenever you get back to this thread.
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May 14, 2015 23:44
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Well, good luck getting back on track, and Rock's destiny here feels kind of... I don't know. Is that what he did in the movie, because he kind of makes sense as a man from an earlier time.
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May 22, 2015 01:03
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Glazius posted:Is that what he did in the movie, because he kind of makes sense as a man from an earlier time. Yep! The movie starts out with a dozen-odd characters, then kills 'em off over its runtime until only Wally, Rock, Milly (Duke Red's daughter, really Chocola from Don Dracula) and Black Jack (not appeared thus far) survive. All but Wally actually opt to stay behind, though they still have the option of returning to the future any time they want. The game actually pulls a bit of Wally's final lines to rock for the in-game dialogue, they stayed as faithful as they could to the source given the limited time for story they had in the stage. And again, I am actively working on this, just needed a bit more time. Got the footage recorded and rendered with all the stuff I want shown shown, got a couple bios written, reread the relevant chapters, watched the episodes once more, read "Pluto" a second time, it was even better now that I recognize all the little references. It's gettin there.
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May 24, 2015 03:25
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oh look, it's two months later, again, BETTER GET BUMPING  I've settled into things, allocated time, pretty much everything is written, I'm heading out somewhere for a week but I'll 100% have it up when I get back, and that'll be followed by constant updates because good LORD. It'd be ready by the weekend if I wasn't headin' out. Also I really REALLY want to have this whole thing done by the end of august. At a rate of 1 lp a year, I'll be worth 1/300th of a Pewdiepie by the time I die, assuming nothing goes wrong!
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Jul 22, 2015 20:34
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Gamwhiz1 posted:Also I really REALLY want to have this whole thing done by the end of august. At a rate of 1 lp a year, I'll be worth 1/300th of a Pewdiepie by the time I die, assuming nothing goes wrong! Yes, but you're actually a likeable person, so who is the real winner? ...It's him, isn't it? I hate this planet sometimes.
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Jul 23, 2015 09:35
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So long as you get it done, the quality of your loredump updates on top of already showing off this cool game is worth the wait 
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Jul 23, 2015 22:48
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  Stage notes!  Firstly, my apologies: The stage is partially inspired by an arc involving a country of robots named Robotonia…which isn’t getting explained, at least not completely, and not right now. It’s a legacy Astro Boy concept, but features elements I really can’t explore until later in the game for a single but significant reason. It’ll be revisited, trust me – though if you want to read the source story, “Blue Knight”, you can do so HERE. What I can tell you is that Robotonia is consistently the result of just about all of the poo poo hitting the fan simultaneously. Even during the best of times, tensions run high between robots and humans in Astro’s universe, and relations aren’t generally helped along by the continuous influx of dangerous, high-powered robots going rouge or being used for crime, all of which endanger human life and property worldwide. Astro, since his birth, continuously works to stop any disasters before they occur, and lends an amiable face to the robotic populace, but the world’s still essentially a powderkeg of racial tension, and a single big push is easily capable of sending the two sides spiraling into utter chaos. The push in question takes a few different forms depending on the adaption, but here, it’s President Rag’s extremely public execution at the hands of radical human terrorists that does the job, an issue exasperated by our in-game absence for half a decade due to time-travel shenanigans. The end result? War. Off-screen war, but war nevertheless. Humans vs Robots duking it out across the planet, which we’re helpfully informed has wiped out 80% of the Earth’s livable surface. The robots, for their part, have set up shop in a nice ominous citadel on the same ground Rag met his end on, and have rallied together a force of robots unlike any the world has ever seen, declaring themselves independent under the leadership of the mysterious Shadow. Shadow, for his part, is more-or-less a non-character as far as the game goes, and will NOT be getting his own bio as he’s 2003-exclusive and somewhat minor, but do note that his inclusion in the game is more of a nod than an actual inclusion – he’s a real, non-disguise character introduced in the 2003 adaption of another Astro Boy story. Speaking of said story…  Here, like many of the other stages in the game, the source story merges itself with another - in this case, “The Greatest Robot On Earth”, readable HERE. The story in question, focusing on the quest of a robot named “Pluto” to prove himself the mightiest robot in the world by means of destroying all other competition, is highly notable in that it’s pretty much the definitive Astro Boy story, as it’s themes are representative of the series as a whole and as it remains one of the most memorable and discussed arcs to the present day. Much like “Blue Knight”, it deals heavily with the morality of violent conflict and the long-term results of it, but unlike some of the other stages, the plot of this story doesn’t really bleed into the plot of the game much. Instead, the story lends many of it’s leading faces to the gauntlet of bosses that compose the stage, casting them as resistance fighters united with Pluto (and the rest of robotic kind) rather than a group of powerful robots distributed worldwide being taken down one-by-one, as was the case in the original story. And it’s this that makes the stage unique – rather than being a sidescrolling beat-em-up or a horizontal shooter, the game throws the player straight from a calm, somewhat relaxing, very random Central American-themed stage into an intense apocalyptic chain of entirely unique boss battles. There’s nothing really hinting that something like this is coming up, so it can really throw you for a loop – especially seeing as the bosses in question are in no way, shape or form pushovers. The sheer number of them makes the bosses compose the stage in its entirety, which means there’s nothing to really cover as far as stage design goes here, but I do feel it was a really interesting design choice (and very, very like Treasure) to go “gently caress it, just throw a ton of bosses at them.”  Also an interesting design choice (and, uh, major spoilers here if you haven’t watched it yet): You die. That’s it, game over. Stage seven, World’s Strongest Robots, wasn’t a ton of bosses for no reason – that’s the finale, roll the credits, put a sock in it. Death Mask, an incredibly ominous THING from the sky has seen enough of your poo poo, nukes all the robots, and calls it a day. Unresolved plot threads (why is Sharaku here in the futuristic world of 2003, again?) be damned, this show’s over, and it’s over with just about the scariest, most out-of-place image you could imagine, that thing’s always given me the willies. And it’s here that the game goes from “good” to “great”. Up to this point, Astro Boy: Omega Factor’s been an incredibly faithful adaption of Osamu Tezuka’s works, but an adaption nonetheless – it explores variations of established stories, but never really diverges on its own path beyond small touches here and there. Plus, as far as the game itself goes, you get an enjoyable little experience, but nothing particularly unique in and of itself – it’s fairly standard fare, especially for a Treasure game. Killing you off, however, accomplishes a number of things – it forces the narrative to go in a different direction to fix what once went wrong, it resolves the current arc in a way faithful to the manga it’s adapting, and, last but not least, it allows one of the most creative ideas I’ve seen in a game come to fruition: the stage select screen becomes a plot device.  By the power of the immortal Phoenix, Astro is given a second chance: go back, armed with the knowledge and experiences he’s gained from his journey, and do it all again without cocking up this time. What went wrong? Who knows! You’re gonna have to go find out yourself! This is the one thing that’s always going to pop up in reviews and retrospectives of the game; the way it fakes you out with a credit roll, then rolls into the incredible originality of taking the ability to travel to different points in the linear, stage-focused game and making it an integral part of the overarching narrative. It allows the game to transcend the boundaries of genre, as from this point forward, PLAYING the stages takes a backseat to an almost adventure-game type setting in which we’re tasked to travel through the timeline, searching for the loose thread we can pull to begin unraveling the various mysteries still left within the game world. It’s an incredibly unique experience as far as games go, one which I’ve really not seen replicated anywhere else, and, like everything else in the game, it’s faithful to Tezuka’s original work. I’m admittedly a little stumped as to communicate this concept, as it requires a bit more of a broad understanding of Tezuka’s portfolio as a whole than I can communicate through a picture or two, but I’ll give it my best shot: Throughout his works, a number of themes and concepts are continuously explored, including conflict between races (in our case, “what measure is a non-human?”), the ultimate destructiveness and horror of conflict, and, finally, life, death, and the cycle of rebirth. One of the clearest examples we’ve been exposed to of this last one is the star system itself, with characters continuously living, dying, and seemingly “reincarnating” again in another work, but Tezuka actually created an entire character and series around this concept, one which he considered his life’s work: Hi no Tori, the Firebird, the Phoenix.  The Phoenix is the embodiment of life and all its cycles, a granter and taker of immortality, an utterly alien being with utterly alien thoughts, a creature that doesn’t always take center stage, but one which always plays an important role, and has a strange habit of popping up in the background of Tezuka adaptions. Is it of this world? Is it a deity? Perhaps, perhaps not, but its presence as the granter of continued life, as a beam of hope in the darkness of despair within the game’s apparent bad ending is incredibly fitting, even moreso when you remember one of the biggest selling points of the game is how robust the cast of Tezuka characters is. You don’t see it coming, but when it does, it becomes apparent that it’s pretty much the perfect way of handing things, the perfect means of getting Phoenix in, the perfect way to give the game an incredibly unique twist, the perfect way to stay faithful to the original story. And, last but not least, it’s the perfect way to free Astro from the pre-trodden ground he’s been on so far – from this moment on, he, and the player, have the ability to choose their own path, and their own ending. …But sadly, while this is all well and good, I’d be remiss in not acknowledging the issue it presents for me and this LP. You see, were you playing the game, you’d only be about 1/3rd of the way done at this point, with the next third composed of replaying the stages, experiencing the greater difficulty they’ll be presenting, and encountering a number of other…shifts. Here, though, the viewer doesn’t really get to experience the ratcheted-up difficulty, and the stages themselves don’t change in any particularly meaningful way. What this means: I will be editing out LARGE chunks of the game from this point forward, as the locales, bosses, and influences have already been discussed, while leaving in plot-related things and whatever bits and pieces I feel are worth mentioning. I’m not 100% on what kind of ratio between commentated and uncommentated sections this is going to result in, but I CAN say with relative certainty that what’s gonna follow will be an abridged, highly condensed version of the game, where you’ll be experiencing plot pretty much non-stop despite the fact that it would normally be broken up by sections of gameplay were you playing the game yourself. I’ll do my best to edit it in a pleasing way, but do note that things will be a little different for a while. If there’s any significant interest expressed in seeing the stages in their entirety, I might consider uploading the full stage gameplay separately as well, but only if said interest is present – there’s some decent longplays of the game out there already that could probably scratch that particular itch, anyway. Chapter names: 7 – 1: Versatile Robot: North; 7 – 2: Invisible Robot: Denkou; 7 – 3: Armored Robot: Brontus; 7 – 4: Quantum Robot: Epsilon; 7 – 5: World’s Strongest Robot ---------- Boss bios! North #2  Moveset:
All of the bosses are getting extensive bios, and all but one fit together in a natural narrative sense, so I’m giving absolutely nothing on them here (well, nothing beyond linking attack names to source pictures showing where they came from), please don’t tempt me, I write more than enough already. In fact, to immediately demonstrate this, I’m giving North two separate boss bio sections, because he deserves it. North, our first boss of the set, at first appears to not be entirely deserving of the stage’s name. He’s just a blue blob of metal floating all by himself in the middle of his room, seemingly content to mind his own business for the better part of eternity. If you don’t bother him, he won’t bother you, even if you stand around for over half an hour; he is, in short, not the most intimidating of foes. Of course, having patience comparable to that of a gnat, most players will likely swiftly respond to this sort of action in the same way: by attempting to punch his face in. They will be met by failure, as it will swiftly become apparent that North isn’t one to take a punch, instead extending a hand of his own to absorb the blow for him. This, in turn, will lead the player to attempt something different, like, say, a laser. They will swiftly learn just how bad an idea this is.  North’s a puzzle boss, with the puzzle being “how do I damage this boob without him pushing my poo poo in?”, and if you mess us, you mess up bad, as that attack up there hits exactly as hard as it looks. There are, of course, ways to handle him, but they can be a bit finicky, and there’s a good chance you’ll die once or twice on the way to figuring them out. And, for the record, the only damageable part of North throughout this whole thing is his head section. The first method: you can hit him with your machine guns. There’s quite a few downsides to this one, including the limited usage you get, the fact that you (like me) might have never upgraded it, and the fact that you actually have to walk a ways away from North to make him open his eyes and become damageable, but if you’re not playing on hard, there’s a chance you could take the 20% of North’s health you need to make him knock this poo poo off without having to resort to other options, as for whatever reason he never retaliates to the move. The second method: you can pull the ol’ switcheroo. By punching North, then immediately using a laser, you can force him to use his palm block and get a quick hit in before he’s able to finish the animation and counterattack. This is the main way to damage him, but it’s not without its downsides either; to pull it off, you have to quickly input a jump, a punch, and a laser in sequence at exactly the right height, and it’s easier than you’d think to mistime the punch, or to get a bit overzealous, press the up button too early, and laser before you punch, which isn’t a mistake you can make more than once in this fight. It’s also possible to get an arm cannon in this way, but note that the arm cannon lasts long enough to activate the counter anyway, and while there’s barely enough time to airdash out of it provided you WERE using the cannon, you only have a split-second to do so. A mite bit tricky, but once you have a feel for it, it isn’t too hard to take out the two blobs of health you need to force North to break out his whole toolbox. E; thanks to KennyMan666 and Choco1980 for pointing out they were able to quickly dash to North's other side when he blocked and counter with a punch; turns out, hard mode doesn't let you do this, but easy and normal will. Pretty cool.  Moveset #2:
The remaining 80% of North’s heathbar consists of a quite frankly staggering amount of moves, particularly seeing how most other bosses in the game only have a handful. North’s the swiss army knife of robots, crammed full of every weapon his creator could squeeze in, and that translates itself to the massive movelist you see here. He’s got a little something of everything, but he only uses one attack at a time, so the challenge is in learning what each of his arms does, then preparing accordingly; North tends to favor whatever arm is closest to you at the time, so you can try to force a drill by standing on the floor to the left of him, or buzzsaws by jumping up to his right, but overall I find it’s easier to just deal with the attacks as they come. North won’t use his counters from the first phase of the fight anymore, so you’re free to punch, kick, and scream to your heart’s content, but he DOES have a pair of new counters for when you laser too close to North’s midsection, so watch out for that - though you can actually take advantage of North’s single-attack pattern to get around this, by, say, launching an arm cannon while North fires missiles, doing damage and destroying the missiles as they spawn to boot. North has a decent amount of health, but when compared to the other bosses in the stage, he’s definitely one of the squishiest – so I suppose it could be said he’s the glass cannon of the group, all offense and comparably little defense. Whale on him when you have the chance, and try not to get roughed up too bad. Thankfully, you get a full restore after every boss fight in this stage, courtesy of the bosses themselves as you add them to your Omega Factor, so as long as you pull through it doesn’t matter how damaged you got. Denkou  Moveset:
Denkou’s a pain in the butt. Like North’s first form, he’s a puzzle boss, but the puzzle isn’t particularly hard – the hard part is chasing his little green tuchas around so that you can actually HURT him. See, the area Denkou’s boss fight takes place in is circular, but rendered on a 2d plane. This means that the left and right sides of the screen are both infinite and loop in on each other. On top of this, the stage has three “layers” (an upper, middle, and lower section), and is about three screen lengths wide. This all comes together to give little Denkou the perfect playground on which to annoy players, as he runs hither and tither every which way, dropping bombs as he goes and laughing at you whenever you get hurt like the little poo poo he is.   Denkou’s challenge isn’t really in the bombs, though, as they’re fairly easy to stay away from. No, his challenge lies in hitting him, and in what happens after you succeed in doing so. See, after taking any kind of damage (with the allowance that the player can complete a full combo on him), Denkou jumps up, does a little twirl, and activates his optical camouflage, allowing him to continue prancing around, except invisible this time. This does Astro no favors, as he’s left entirely unable to damage Denkou in this state; instead, he has to run all over the arena, find one of three activated “generators”, and punch it to put it out of commission, allowing you to rinse and repeat. Unfortunately for the player, things don’t stay this simple. Every time you do a bit more damage to him, Denkou gets a bit more insufferable; he’s faster, he sets his fuses shorter, and he activates 2, then all 3 of the generators at once. What starts as a friendly little game of explosive tag turns into Wile E. Coyote vs. the Roadrunner, and results are comparable to said matchup as well. The trick lies in killing the kid off before he gets to his max speed (at which point he’s basically a walking explosion), which in turn lies in rationing your damage out to get him to the highest threshold at which you can kill him in a single round – and that’s not something you’re likely to try doing your first time through, so have fun running after this little green turd.  Funnily enough, this boss battle is actually stylized after a Sega game from the early ‘80s – Monster Bash, to be specific. It was a little arcade title in which you, the player, were tasked with destroying a famous Hollywood monster, but had no real means of doing so – so instead of attacking them directly, you had to avoid them and other assorted baddies, activate a trio of candles, and grab the resultant magical blade, which you could then use to destroy the evil monster once and for all. It’s a bit more robust that Denkou’s fight, but the concept is the same – the stages (well, 2 of 3) in Monster Bash were also tiered, the candles are equitable to the three generators allowing you to damage Denkou, and, like in-game, monster bash only gave you one try at damaging the baddie – if they survive, you have to activate all the candles/generators again. It seems like a somewhat random inclusion, but remember, the game’s made by Treasure AND Hitmaker – a division of Sega. I guess Sega didn’t want to be left out of all the nostalgic inclusions? HERE’S a vid of the game in action, for reference. Brontus  Moveset:
Brontus is the armored guy! That’s his gimmick! You gotta have a gimmick if you wanna be the world’s strongest! And what an armor it is. Brontus straight-up cannot be damaged; hit his head, hit his feet, hit his big beautiful golden chest, you ain’t gonna put a dent in him. So what do you do? Well, after much research into the subject, I have determined what I believe to be the most effective course of action:  The big glowing recessed weak spot made things rather easy. So yes, attack that. It’s only revealed after Brontus uses one of his ball attacks (at which point he’ll try to catch his robobreath in a very conspicuous manner) or when he uses his beam attack, but that’s more than enough time to throw an arm cannon or a couple punches in there. Brontus is honestly probably the simplest boss of the set; all you really have to do is keep dashing behind him and you’ll never, ever get hurt. A breather boss for the middle of the gauntlet, though he does have a shitload of health (the most we’ve seen so far, actually), so you’ll be here for a little while. Honestly, the only annoying bit is trying to figure out how to pronounce “Gajihito”, I’m sure I screwed it royally, but google didn’t return a pronunciation guide, and I wanted to use Gajihito (as opposed to the alternative “Gesicht”) as that’s the name used in-game. Basically, I can’t into German, sorry. Epsilon  Moveset:
Epsilon is a character that’s been heavily altered for the 2003 anime, changing genders, powers, and personality along the way. This’ll be covered in his/her bio, but know that A: the game (and I) will refer to him as male, and B: Epsilon’s original powers were light-based, with the reboot being water-based, both of which are represented in equal parts here. With that out of the way, Epsilon here IS primarily water-based, flooding his boss room immediately upon your entry and basing most of his attacks on the creatures of the sea. The water brings with it standard platforming water physics, so you’ll be jumping to the top of the screen and descending relatively slowly, but that’s not something you’re gonna want to take advantage of, as most of Epsilon’s attacks cover the top of the screen better than they cover the bottom. Rather, staying low and chipping at Epsilon’s toes is the way to go, and is something you’re gonna want to do non-stop, as unlike his fellows, he has no real defense against you – every part of Epsilon is always damageable. The issue with Epsilon is the annoyingly random nature of a lot of his attacks – the urchins and dolphins come in wherever they want, and in both cases can appear off-screen, making your attempts at dodging a bit of a crapshoot. I haven’t really found a decent method to consistently manage it, but thankfully, you can tank the both of them a couple times without really having to worry.  What you HAVE to worry about are the whale and the photons, because those will absolutely devastate you. The whale in particular will do over 60k damage in a single hit on hard, killing you if you don’t have at least 4 upgrades in health, while the laser can do anywhere from chip damage to an instakill depending on whether or not you spent more than an eighth of a second in the beam. Not fun - especilaly for me, I had to cobble that thing's sprite together from a dozen images, it has a super annoying bubble effect and it was a pain in the butt.  And this is where I make mention of the thing many of you have probably been screaming for a while: “THAT’S ECCO THE DOLPHIN!” And yes, I think it is. I mean, the sprite’s not 100% identical to the Genesis classic, and there’s only so much you can do to determine whether one dolphin sprite is supposed to be another dolphin sprite (most dolphins look the same you guys), but given the added presence of the Big Blue Whale, another familiar Ecco face, and the fact that this game was made in part by a division of Sega that has already proven themselves capable of being self-referential, I’d say there’s a decent chance it is indeed an intentional throwback. And a rather cool one at that; I haven’t yet personally experienced the game in full myself, but it’s one of those titles that’s part of the collective ~gamer~ consciousness at this point, in that everyone is aware of its existence and could probably pick the little Tursiops out of a lineup. Pluto  Moveset:
The world’s strongest robot (and the kind-of final boss) is no joke – he’s a beast in offence and defense, and he’s not about to pull any punches, regardless of how he feels about the fight in-game. A bit of context to put this battle in perspective – Epsilon, the boss immediately before Pluto, takes one full melee combo to take 10% of his health off with my current power. Brontus, the boss who until now had the most HP in the game, took two combos. Pluto requires three to do the same amount of damage. The dude’s a tank, and it can take a bit of practice to take him down. Pluto’s not really like the other robots he’s been paired up with – there’s no gimmick going on here, unless you count “is really, really strong” as a gimmick. Pluto attacks with ranged projectiles, hits with close-range attacks when the situation requires it, employs his electro-magnetic horns in highly damaging techniques, defends himself from damage – he’s a really well-rounded fighter, to the point that you’ll want to carefully time attacks, despite the fact that he’s vulnerable over his entire body. He’ll release missiles, then use a tornado to reduce your mobility and prevent dodging them; he’ll use a laser attack, then immediately lunge back towards you as you hide behind him; he’ll suck you in with one tornado, pause briefly to make you think it’s safe to attack, then launch another one to catch you off-guard. He’s got some good AI patterns, and while he’s set back by how vulnerable the two laser moves make him, it’s still a fairly difficult fight – his attacks won’t necessarily do as much damage as, say, Epsilon’s whale, but the fight lasts three times as long, which makes it quite easy to get plain out-enduranced. There’s otherwise no huge mechanic for me to note here – it’s just an old-fashioned, rough-and-tumble robo brawl.  Pluto’s the centerpiece of the “World’s Strongest Robots” arc, and again, as he ties into the other robots in a very organized way, I’m leaving the meaty bits for his bio, but do note the game’s trying to be clever with Pluto’s touching death, his farewell to Zoran, and his little goodbye conversation with Astro, despite the fact that they only exchanged a few lines in-game prior to this. Sometimes, you have to use your imagination to fill in the relationships and skipped events implied to occur within the game…or, you know, go read/watch the source material. Music! The stage’s music obviously has to double as the boss battle music here, and I think it does a good enough job of it – it conveys definite power with the ominous marching-style drums and horns throughout the whole thing. I get a bit bored of it once the 3rd and 4th boss roll around, but it’d be unreasonable to expect a separate boss theme for each. Pluto at least gets his own, and it’s made as a more intense version of the previous theme with the same general instrumentation, so it fits the character of the boss’s boss quite well. Admittedly, I don’t like it as much as, say, Pook’s boss theme, but it works. Phoenix, for its part, seems like just an atmospheric track meant to convey the otherworldly and gentle nature of the bird, though it’s entirely possible this is a reference to a track from an animated Phoenix adaption, as was the case with the Amazing Three and Big X earlier – there’s a lot of Phoenix-related works, and it’s a pain in the tuchas trying to view it all, so if it’s indeed a reference it’s gone over my head, sorry. #30: World’s strongest robots #31: Boss theme 7 – Pluto #32: Phoenix Gamwhiz1 fucked around with this message at 01:12 on Apr 12, 2017 |
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Aug 19, 2015 13:28
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I remember when I first saw a Let's Play of this game, and... Hoo-boy, I wasn't so happy about the fakeout! But on consideration, it is clever, and fits with the themes. I'm pretty confident you'll be explaining that as we go along, so I'll avoid spoilers through silence.  It's definitely one of the earlier examples of a game with a "Do things differently at certain points to get the different ending" mechanic, although there are a few others. The most notable of these would be the first Siren game, where this was a core part of the NG+ gameplay (And the changes could be as little as opening a window, or rather more far reaching) Still enjoying the episodes and explanations of references, can't wait to see (again) what changes we make to history!
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Aug 19, 2015 14:21
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Part of me wants to remember that you can hit North by punching to summon a palm, then dash through him and hit him on the other side... or maybe that's just what I always tried doing and it never actually worked. Also now that we have Pluto here, people should go read Naoki Urusawa's Pluto. It's basically a perspective flip of the original World's Strongest Robots story (that I, uh, haven't actually read), with a few elements from other Astro Boy stories, and absolutely fantastic. Also sad. Seriously worth the read.
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Aug 19, 2015 14:23
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Oh, trust me, I'll be shilling it plenty myself. In fact, hell, there's 6 bios, might as well drop one now with a link to it.
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Aug 19, 2015 15:54
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Star #18: =North= Through the ages: Manga, 1980, 2003, Pluto (Urasawa) See him in action: 1980 EPISODE 24, 2003 EPISODE 17 ---------- I’m nearly 100% positive that this saga was represented in the 1963 version of Mighty Atom, but the American release of the show axed a sizable chunk of the episodes, and it seems “The Greatest Robot on Earth” was included in the mix. I’ve tried, and failed, to find a working Japanese link to the episode(s?) in question, so you won’t be seeing any 1963 screenshots or episodes represented for Pluto and friends. Sorry! ---------- Tezuka character list bio: Number 19  - A super robot that uses its six arms to defend against multiple attacks. Originally, he was a butler robot from Scotland. In the episode “The Biggest Robots on Earth,” Pluto, was created to defeat the strongest robots in the world, including Astro, Brontus, North, Gajihito, Brando, Hercules, and Epsilon. Only the robots who were popular were selected to be in this game.The first of our Pluto-saga bots! Stage seven, “World’s Strongest Robots”, is, as mentioned numerous times so far, based heavily around a rather famous Astro Boy story titled “The Greatest (Biggest) Robot on Earth.” It’s essentially the precursor to your modern-day tournament arc, featuring the protagonist facing off against an ever-strengthening series of unique opponents one at a time, with the twist here being it’s not Astro facing off against the robots – it’s Pluto, a robot designed specifically to be king of the robots and tasked with destroying any and all challengers, with Astro being only one out of the seven unwitting challengers. North, or North #2 as he’s generally known, is the second robot attacked by Pluto in the original story. A Scottish butler bot, possessing great destructive power but a quietly noble attitude, North #2 calls the reserved castle of his somewhat eccentric creator home. He’s softspoken and follows his orders unquestioningly, but his lowly position belies the true strength hiding within him – North #2’s body conceals a veritable armory of weapons, tools, limbs, and whatever other assorted knickknacks could be crammed into it, all of which can be rapidly swapped out as the situation calls for.  Unfortunately for him, North #2’s early position in Pluto’s hitlist leaves him little time for backstory – for the most part, he’s shown talking with his creator, sensing the arrival of Pluto, heading out, and then getting unceremoniously slaughtered when he makes the mistake of grabbing onto Pluto’s horns while attempting to dismantle the monstrous robot. It doesn’t give him a lot of time to shine, and the 2003 adaption of the Pluto story (where the in-game design of North is taken from) relegates him to a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo appearance alongside Brando and Mont Blanc/Brontus where they each get slaughtered by Pluto in less than 15 seconds, diminishing his import even more. It means there’s not a lot to talk about in his bio, as his presence is fairly one-dimensional, despite the rad Swiss army knife-esque gimmick he has going on.  Which, incidentally, provides me a good chance to shill Naoki Urasawa’s “Pluto”, a modernized adaption of the story made between 2003 and 2009 by the author of "20th century boys" and "Monster". North #2 honestly has one of the more interesting designs of all the world’s greatest robots, and it’s a shame he doesn’t get more screen time in the more traditional adaptions of the story. Luckily, Urasawa’s work fixes this problem right up by giving you three chapters of Northy goodness that really make him feel like more of a relatable character with his own distinct personality, rather than just early cannon fodder to get the plot rolling. And, to sweeten the deal even further, said chapters are almost entirely self-contained, insulated from the overarching plot so as to focus more on North (and his ultimately inevitable demise), meaning even if you don’t want to invest in the longer, extremely (EXTREMELY) good manga, you can check out what this guy’s deal is separate from all of that nonsense. You can, and should, do that HERE. Urasawa does an amazing job of blurring the line between Human and Robot in the series and making their deaths legitimately moving, which, as should have been made clear by the most recent in-game events, is a crucial theme running throughout the Astro Boy series – what exactly causes conflict between different groups, what separates them in the first place, and what can be done to prevent it? It’s very faithful and I can’t recommend it enough, is what I’m saying. Gamwhiz1 fucked around with this message at 03:42 on Apr 30, 2017 |
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Aug 19, 2015 15:55
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And now--finally--the game can begin proper. While the first "half" of the game is a decent brawler, as all of said, this is where the game abruptly changes and becomes something absolutely special. I assume you, Gamwhiz, intend to move the game chronologically correctly and go through the second loop in normal order, viewing the second story properly (with lots of abridging for redundancy, natch) before you start really exploring the potential of the game, as intended. This is the point where the game both stops being a straight AB adaptation, yet at the same time really captures the spirit of what Tezuka was trying for with his overall messages. We kinda start moving closer to what he says in his serious books rather than his all ages actioners. Stuff like Phoenix or Buddha start really shining thematically here, even if they don't have direct involvement for the most part. Over the summer my son discovered this game along side many other older games while he was staying with me (and became a Metroidvania fanatic practically overnight, but I digress). Before he had to leave again for his mom's, he came extremely close to beating the game, but got hung up on a very hard boss, which we'll see much later. I had to help him once we got to the second loop as he didn't care nearly as much about the story as he should have and would often miss important information. Incidentally, Kennyman666's strategy for North does indeed work, because that's what he would use for the first portion of the game--"punch to a block, dash through, and punch the other side".
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Aug 19, 2015 17:10
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I love how ridiculous the plot in this episode is. "Behold my giant human slaying army, i mean, sure 80% of the world has been destroyed but once we enslave the rest of the humans that's not really gonna be a problem. You're cool with this right?" "No" "Well we tried. MINIONS!"
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Aug 19, 2015 17:14
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Oh boy. The game just became so much better. I'm curious to see where it goes from here. Reminds me just a little bit of Radiant Historia.
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Aug 19, 2015 17:31
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Choco1980 posted:And now--finally--the game can begin proper. While the first "half" of the game is a decent brawler, as all of said, this is where the game abruptly changes and becomes something absolutely special. I assume you, Gamwhiz, intend to move the game chronologically correctly and go through the second loop in normal order, viewing the second story properly (with lots of abridging for redundancy, natch) before you start really exploring the potential of the game, as intended. Yep, not gonna start jumpin' around the timeline til it's all unlocked. Hopefully won't be as painful on me, as all the stages and bosses have been covered, won't have to write essays on them again. More than likely, second run's either gonna be two medium-ish videos, or one marathon one to give the necessary setup. Might use the opportunity to say a bit more about the stages/characters, edit in a picture here or there now that it's all been seen. Choco1980 posted:Incidentally, Kennyman666's strategy for North does indeed work, because that's what he would use for the first portion of the game--"punch to a block, dash through, and punch the other side". This makes me wonder if there's a difference in regions, because I just spent a few minutes on this sucker playing frame-by-frame and he just would NOT let me do it. Always blocked again as the other hand was disappearing. E; hold on a tick, this might be a hard mode thing. EE; YEP, it's a hard mode thing, he won't let you do it on hard but will on normal. That's pretty neat, this game isn't nearly as well-documented as I'm used to so I only find this stuff by accident. Honestly didn't know hard changed more than damage when I started this, but I now know Atlas does more dashes, there's no health refill on the marine express, and North axes one of your damage methods. Neato. Gamwhiz1 fucked around with this message at 18:26 on Aug 19, 2015 |
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Aug 19, 2015 18:21
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Man, you could barely make it through those credits without cracking up, could you? Glad to have you back.
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Aug 19, 2015 18:51
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Good to have you back, and your anime loredumps 
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Aug 19, 2015 23:47
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Ah, nuts. Channel that hosted all the 1980s episodes in good quality for the last few years got closed, that's a real pain. I'll see if I can replace some of the links in the coming days, but this LP was never gonna last long in a complete form due to all the copyrighted stuff involved, my apologies if you miss out on stuff. Really annoys me too, at least for the 2003 episodes you can still view em with a VPN plugin, these are just straight-up gone. Seems the next-best alternative is also regionblocked, but at least that means they probably won't go anywhere anytime soon?
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Aug 20, 2015 18:36
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Star #19: =Denkou= Through the ages: Manga, 1963, 1980, 2003 See him/her in action: 1963 EPISODE 7, 1980 EPISODE 13, 2003 EPISODE 6 Tezuka character list bio: Number 20  - A super robot who can disappear using optical camouflage. He prefers not to fight, so he never attacks. But the explosives he carries on his belt can be very dangerous. The bomb belt is specifically designed for the new anime. The idea for the gameplay came from the Sega arcade, “Monster Bash.” In the original manga, he was called “Denkouman (Electricman).” In the original comic, other characters such as “Kitaiman (Gasman)” appeared as well. But, all the “—man” names were changed to not sound like sci-fi movie titles. Titles like Wells’ “Invisible Man,” “Densou Man (Electric Man),” “Beauty and the Liquid Man,” all come to mind.How amazing! How majestic! How utterly fantastic! An invisible robot, made of PH glass, solar-charged polymers and optical shields! An automaton which can phase in and out of vision, operating entirely unseen! What marvels modern science has brought! Surely, there is nothing that could ever possibly go wrong when creating a virtually undetectable being! Denkou’s an outlier, a standout in the lineup of bosses he/she features alongside, due to the simple fact that Denkou was never, ever a part of the World’s Strongest Robots story the rest of the stage’s cast is pulled from. I’m not 100% sure why they chose to include Denkou here, but they did, sooooo…I guess we’ll just deal with it? Also, to set the record straight for the rest of this bio: Denkou is traditionally a male, and I will be referring to him as such from here on out. A bit of confusion comes in in his 2003 appearance, where he’s referred to as a female throughout, and I include that here because the game uses his (very distinct) 2003 design as well, but I’d imagine the gender confusion only exists because of executive meddling in the dub, in regards to his fairly androgynous redesigned appearance. As far as the game goes, the writers went with male pronouns for the bio, so I’ll be stickin’ to that. On that note, while he’s not traditionally involved in Pluto’s particular long-lived tale, Denkou IS an Astro Boy veteran in his own right, appearing in some form in every main adaption done of the series. Traditionally a newly-constructed experimental robot, Denkou’s showcased and displayed in exhibits amongst the other cutting-edge robots of the time – he’s clearly a cut above his peers, however, and wins himself many awards as the public look in awe of the almost angelic beauty of the being that appears, as if by magic, out of thin air when polarized light shines upon his frame. Unfortunately for all involved, one Skunk Kusai is also present to witness this wonder, and the potential criminal applications of an invisible accomplice do not escape the crook. Skunk’s shown up in-game once on Cruciform Island, but hasn’t been given a bio just yet – the best summation of him would be to say he’s an old-fashioned gangster, sporting a posse of pistol-slinging thugs and aiming to pull off more and more audacious heists, so it should come as no surprise that Skunk wastes no time in taking Denkou for himself, and promptly puts him to work stealing jewels and robbing banks.  Denkou, for his part, is essentially a naïve newborn, unaware of the concept of morality, and it’s this concept that forms the main conflict in his story – Skunk on one side, preying on Denkou’s innocence and convincing him the crimes he commits are no more than games, and Astro on the other, trying to stop Denkou on his own terms, to teach the robot how to conduct himself in society in a beneficial way rather than a destructive one. Matters become more urgent as the police get further involved in the case, as while Denkou isn’t particularly powerful on paper (and wasn’t designed for battle), his invisibility does allow him quite an advantage in Skunk’s faceoffs, which leads law enforcement to show little mercy in their continued efforts to subdue Skunk and his unwitting cohort. Within the original story, and most of the adaptions, things seem to be going well as Astro befriends Denkou and takes measures to make him visible, thus rendering him useless to skunk; unfortunately for the side of good, Denkou gets spooked by his sudden visibility and runs off as a pair of disembodied legs, returning to Skunk, and, in light of his newly-painted limbs, getting one final task:  Denkou’s fighting style in-game of dropping time bombs everywhere he goes is a direct callback to his ultimate fate – he gets sent off with a fun ticking toy, told only to take it to the Ministry of Science, where his criminally-inclined master’s enemies have been creating a device to prove Skunk’s guilt before a bought-off judge beyond all doubt. The police, Wally, Ministry officials (including O'shay) and Astro all launch a massive manhunt to try to protect civilians and save Denkou from himself, but they only manage to corner him with a few seconds left on the clock, and, well…things don’t end too well for Denkou, as the police take measures to neutralize the bomb moments before it goes off. It’s actually fairly tragic, and I suppose it ties him into the stage proper as yet another robotic victim of human greed, though Skunk himself receives justice shortly thereafter. Denkou’s story is fairly self-contained and consistent across works, with the only major exceptions early on being his namechange to “Zero” for America’s version of Astro Boy in the 1960s and “Electro” for the English-translated manga, but as the in-game bio notes, Denkou = Electric, so the latter’s not that egregious. Beyond that, the 2003 show softens the plot a bit, changing Denkou’s invisibility so that he can phase in and out at will (as shown in-game) and allowing him to survive to the end, though Skunk and the bomb, now in belt form, are still retained, as are the string of unwitting heists. It’s a fairly decent and representative tale overall, though Denkou isn’t a character that recurs beyond his story, and doesn’t have a ton of relevance in the grand scheme of things. I left the talk about “Monster Bash” for the boss bio, as it seemed more fitting there, though I will give you a link to gameplay here so you can compare for yourself. While I’m at it, here’s a link to the trailer for “Beauty and the Liquid Man”, as you just have to look into a movie with a title like that. Wikipedia’s plot summary makes it seem like…well, very Japanesey cinema, made by some of the men behind “Godzilla” - not quite sure why they felt the need to mention it in ‘ol Denkou’s bio but hey, it’s not the first strange inclusion when it comes to this guy. Gamwhiz1 fucked around with this message at 00:30 on Apr 23, 2017 |
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Aug 21, 2015 16:57
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I'm one of those quiet lurker types in a lot of threads but I figured I should at least chip in and say that I'm super fascinated by all the history behind Osamu Tezuka and his works. I played and loved this game and seeing that there's a hugely deep and connected lore behind it is super cool.
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Aug 21, 2015 17:44
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Now the game gets fun. Also, Death Mask scared the crap out of me too. The music for that whole scene is amazing too.
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Aug 21, 2015 20:58
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Star #20: =Brontus= Through the ages: Manga, 1980, 2003, Pluto (Urasawa) See him in action: 1980 EPISODE 24, 2003 EPISODE 17 Tezuka character list bio: Number 21  - A super robot equipped with heavy armor. He is immune to any attacks except for those against his weak point, his blue core. In the original manga, he was a robot from Switzerland with 135,000 horsepower. Pluto caught him unawares and destroyed him.WHO THE gently caress IS BRONTUS??? Ok, so this guy threw me for a loop a bit when I was first looking into Astro Boy media outside of the game. See, there is no character named “Brontus” in any version of “The Greatest Robot on Earth” I’ve come across, and his powers and appearance in-game don’t really match up perfectly with any of the robots included in the story over the years. Having said this, though, I DO believe he’s part of the lineup – he’s just more a part of it than he initially appears to be.  Exhibit A: Montblanc. A world-renowned mountain guide robot, possessing 135,000 horses of raw Swiss power and a friendly demeanor. Good with kids, logging enthusiast, and lover of nature…as well as the unwitting first target for Pluto. Interestingly, he’s also the only one left out of the list given in North’s Bio - Astro, Brontus, North, Gajihito, Brando, Hercules, and Epsilon are all named, but it seems Brontus has edged Montblanc out, while Brando, Gajihito and Hercules are simply MIA. This creates a bit of a quandary – on the one hand, Brontus possesses the same rooster-like comb as Montblanc, and his bio references the Swiss origin and exact horsepower he was presented with in the story, but on the other hand, Montblanc was the first victim of Pluto, didn’t have any sort of forewarning of what was coming, and, as a direct result, went down with barely any struggle, getting trapped between Pluto’s horns and blasted apart by a powerful electro-magnetic field before he even knew what was happening. Beyond wielding an axe, Montblanc has literally nothing to work off of as far as the story goes, never getting a single attack in and most certainly not displaying the energy blasts, the blue core, or the wrecking ball abilities Brontus exhibits in the game.  Exhibit B: Brando. A formidable Turkish robot wrestler, and good friend of Montblanc, Brando is the third robot to fall victim to Pluto. He possesses enough power to severely wound the monstrous ‘bot, but also possesses by far THE blandest design of all parties involved in the arc, and isn’t represented in-game…directly, anyway. Indirectly is, of course, another case – Brando’s signature move is to retract his limbs and turn himself into a wrecking ball, spinning along the ground to crash into his foes or leaping high in the air to slam down upon them. It’s pretty much blow-for-blow the kind of fighting style Brontus exhibits in-game, and makes me think that Treasure, bless their hearts, combined the good looks (but lack of moves) of Montblanc with the powerful fighting style of his facially forgettable friend Brando, resulting in what we see here – Brontus. Now, it’s not 100% perfect – neither Brando nor Montblanc exhibit the “core” weak point, the extreme armor, or the chest projectiles Brontus does, but I can say with relative certainty that Brontus is meant to be an amalgamation of a few players in “The Greatest Robot on Earth,” allowing a greater number to be represented in-game than would otherwise be possible. In fact, that may not even be where it ends – I’m less sure about this one, but it may have been that Gajihito, the German detective robot, was also included in the mix. He looks nothing like either of the two robots discussed so far physically, but the distinctive golden color of his body is represented in Brontus where neither Brando nor Montblanc had it, his main gimmick (being made of a special alloy called “Zeronium” that made him immune to many forms of attack) may have been translated as Brontus’ invulnerable body, and Gajihito DID have the ability to fire energy beams from his chest. It’s another fairly impressive inclusion that shows the devs really did their homework, creating an amalgamation character that, while lacking in personality on its own, shows traits of most of the robots that didn’t make it in, and is quite a treat for knowledgeable fans because of it. Obviously this means Brontus doesn’t really show up beyond the aforementioned blink-and-you’ll miss it cameo alongside North (and what appears to be an update on Brando’s original design), but I feel it was worth sacrificing one SPECIFIC character for the sake of getting two (or three?) in at once.  Urasawa’s a bit more direct in his depiction of Montblanc than he was with North, which means Montblanc doesn’t get much direct screen time beyond flashbacks and newscasts, but I do appreciate how he was left more robotic and faithful to his original look, as opposed to characters like Brando, who is reimagined as a humanoid robot with a personalized wrestling suit he transfers his artificial brain into, or Gajihito, who gets an extreme upgrade by becoming both extremely humanlike and the main character for most of the story. It’s a nice way to ease into the more mature retelling, and while I’m not gonna go deep into the reimagined personality or power of all three characters, I am gonna mention them because I will never, ever stop recommending you read NAOKI URASAWA’S PLUTO, (probably) AVAILABLE AT A BOOKSELLER NEAR YOU. Gamwhiz1 fucked around with this message at 00:29 on Apr 23, 2017 |
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Aug 23, 2015 17:03
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Checking the Japanese Wikipedia page for the game, in the Japanese version he was straight up named モンブラン/Montblanc.
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Aug 23, 2015 17:57
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Why the heck did they change it then, what a weird decision. All the other localization is fairly accurate, and Mont Blanc isn't a Japanese name or anything - it's a drat mountain in the Alps, used as his name because he's a mountain guide.
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Aug 23, 2015 18:49
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Gamwhiz1 posted:Why the heck did they change it then, what a weird decision. All the other localization is fairly accurate, and Mont Blanc isn't a Japanese name or anything - it's a drat mountain in the Alps, used as his name because he's a mountain guide. My guess is since his abilities match some of Brando and some are completely new (the core thing is something i find a lot of in Konami shooters for example), they came up with a new but similar name.
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Aug 23, 2015 19:21
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Star #21: =Epsilon= Through the ages: Manga, 1980, 2003, Pluto (Urasawa) See him/her in action: 1980 EPISODE 25, 2003 EPISODE 18 Tezuka character list bio: Number 22  - A super robot who loves nature, and can speak to animals. He is powered by photons, and is equipped with a powerful photon cannon. In the original manga, he was a man-shaped robot from Australia. Since he never runs out of energy when there is light, Pluto chose to attack him at night, and successfully defeated him.Epsilon is, like Denkou, another case of a Male character turning into a female for the 2003 anime, and again, Epsilon was originally a guy. The game, for its part, refers to him as such, so so will I. This one might actually be a female in Japan too, though – those are some powerful manboobs if not. Epsilon’s the 6th, and ultimately the final, victim of Pluto’s killing spree, and there’s very good reason for that - Epsilon is, hands-down, THE most sympathetic and well-developed member of the robotic menagerie presented to readers during the course of Pluto’s arc. An Australian robot, powered entirely by the sun, Epsilon is only introduced halfway through the story, but when he is, he doesn’t hold back – he’s smarter than those that came before, he seeks to join forces with Hercules (who shuns Epsilon and becomes the fifth to go down), he’s willing to work together with his enemy for the good of innocents, and, to put the cherry on top, he’s the 10-year caretaker of a group of cute little orphans who love him ever so much.  Every appearance Epsilon makes is engineered to endear him to the audience, to make him sympathetic, to make him the character you root for and hope against hope he succeeds, whereas the robots that came before him generally showed up, displayed their slick moves for a few pages, then got exploded into little bits before they could really be characterized. It’s a little cliché by today’s standards, but it’s an angle that gets helped out by the fact that epsilon’s actually legitimately powerful – he’s a pacifist by nature, but despite all the sympathy points he goes out of his way to accumulate, he’s probably the most evenly-matched opponent Pluto has to face. Epsilon’s main gimmick is his photon power – as long as the sun is shining, he’s practically unstoppable, and is capable of rapid recovery, extremely swift movement, flight, light discharge powerful enough to fully illuminate the darkest depths of the ocean, and just plain ‘ol devastating energy beams. Epsilon’s weakness, then, is obviously areas without natural sunlight, a fact Pluto learns and exploits by attacking the Australian at night during a heavy rainstorm, but even then he’s far from a sitting duck – Epsilon is totally capable of holding his own even without his energy source backing him up, and it’s only with a second underhanded move that Pluto manages to get the best of him. Epsilon ultimately doesn’t manage to escape Pluto’s tragic crusade, but he does come as close as anyone to bringing the battle bot down, and in so doing, he’s earned the respect of every reader to witness his struggle. Or something.  …then, of course, you have the redesign. Epsilon, as (s)he appears in the 2003 version, is…well, a little off. For whatever reason, someone apparently thought the POWER OF THE SUN was not sufficiently rad enough for Epsilon, so instead, they took her in a different direction – Epsilon circa 2003 is known for her ability to detect changes in and control the weather, and for her ability to be Aquaman. She can can control the tides, she can move freely underwater, and she can commune with the fishies, which kinda become stand-ins for the orphans in the original story in that she gets ganked when Pluto threatens to wipe em all out using undersea volcanoes. There are one or two comments in passing about her “firing her photons”, so at least the writers knew where they were coming from, but in general, Epsilon’s redesign may as well be a completely different character from the original source – hence the dolphins and whales and sea urchins aplenty in-game, with not a sun in sight. Also, before I move on to the requisite shilling, I should note – no one OTHER THAN Pluto himself actually gets got in the 2003 version (and even then only temporarily), because then-modern American kiddies (me?) apparently can’t/couldn’t handle robots dying in increasingly tragic ways. Epsilon just gets shocked into submission, then shows up again for the big series finale. IN GAME, of course, either Astro’s killing him/her or Death Mask finishes the job, so huzzah for canon endings.  And there’s your daily dose of shilling. Urasawa’s gone the effeminate route too, giving Epsilon nice long flowing blonde locks and a much less robust bod than some of his fellow victims, but here, at least, he definitely retains his nuts and bolt where they count. He also retains the TRAGIC BUILD-UP, as he’s one of the only victims in the story to have refused involvement in the big background plot-motivating war Urasawa added for extra twist potential, and in fact hosts a bevy of orphaned children resulting from that same war. It’s all very sad as he rushes hither and tither trying to escape his fate before Pluto dicks him over again by battling before the sun rises, while Epsilon tries to protect the poor shell-shocked orphan. Seriously, what are you doing, go read it, I’ve already spoiled tons of the story and I ain’t gonna stop til the big man himself is done with, what are you doing with your life. Gamwhiz1 fucked around with this message at 00:30 on Apr 23, 2017 |
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Aug 25, 2015 23:55
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Another Japanese Wikipedia check, and Epsilon is indeed refered to as female there. So, uh. That makes even less sense than the Montblanc -> Brontus thing, really...
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Aug 26, 2015 10:13
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Holy poo poo, other people who remember this game. I need to hunt it down again cause it was raaaaaaaad.
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Aug 26, 2015 10:47
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My exposure to Pluto is really only this game. I vaguely remember him from the 2003 series which I need to watch again at some point, but I never realised how much of a dick he was. In the game, he seems like the stoic warrior type who is fighting for what he feels is a just cause, and outside of battle is the gentle giant. In reality, he's an arse. If he had been like that in the game, I would have put money on him having a final move where he grabs Zoran and holds her up as a shield, and if you hit her once, she goes down, Astro gets upset and shocked that he hurt his sister, and Pluto gives you some mega death blow which is a one hit kill.
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Aug 27, 2015 08:44
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Hoss Corncave posted:My exposure to Pluto is really only this game. I vaguely remember him from the 2003 series which I need to watch again at some point, but I never realised how much of a dick he was. I'm a bit disconnected from where I was when I first played (sacrifice you make when you dive deep into a thing like this), but now that you mention it, he is presented in a pretty positive light in-game, whereas he's a mass-murderer elsewhere. That said, the "stoic warrior" thing is still accurate, and the bit with Zoran just straight would never happen - he's the type that follows orders but doesn't go beyond them, so he only targets the people his boss sics him on. He's otherwise a nice chap so long as he's not gunning for you in particular. Also I guess this would be a good time to post his bio 
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Aug 28, 2015 19:03
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Star #22: =Pluto= Through the ages: Manga, 1980, 2003, Pluto (Urasawa) See him in action: 1980 EPISODE 24, 2003 EPISODE 17 Tezuka character list bio: Number 23  - The ultimate warrior with weapons equipped all over his entire body. The Pluto that appears in this game is the new design created for the new anime. Boraa, the robot who defeated Pluto, has also been changed. The original episode with Pluto was called “The Biggest Robots on Earth.” For the new anime, the title has been changed to “The World’s Greatest Robots.” Astro Boy was the most popular anime in 1964 when Pluto was first introduced. Ah, Pluto. The main man, the star of the show, the big kahoona. He’s the crux of this whole thing, the robot that ties “The Biggest Robots on Earth” together, the main villain, but at the same time, just another victim of events beyond his control. Let's start with background. In the original story, Pluto's commissioned by a deposed Sultan by the name of Chochi Chochi Ababa the third, built by a scientist under his employ named Doctor Abullah, and programmed with the sole purpose of bringing the Sultan the glory he had lost upon being banished from his home country years ago. Pluto’s specifically designed with the ability and mentality to wage battle in the most efficient way possible, and upon his activation, he’s provided with a hitlist: for the sake of proving his power and superiority as King of Robots to the world at large, he is to seek out and destroy the most powerful and standout examples of robotic engineering from around the world, including MontBlanc of Switzerland, North #2 of Scotland, Atom of Japan, Brando of Turkey, Gajihito of Germany, Hercules of Greece, and Epsilon of Australia. He fights with no inhibitions, no mercy, and no guilt, obeying his creator unquestioningly, existing only to battle, and he’s terrifyingly adept at it – equipped with a million horses of raw energy, the ability to travel and attack as a devastating tornado, a nigh-indestructible body, and dexterous, elongated horns capable of capturing and demolishing opponents with a powerful electromagnetic field, Pluto takes down his opponents one by one, sparking worldwide fervor and attracting the attention of those he’s hunting down. He appears and disappears in the blink of an eye, leaving naught but smoldering wrecks in his wake, and despite the best efforts of the world’s leading minds, it seems impossible to nail down where, or what, the destructive force decimating the world’s greatest robots is.  Pluto’s name is derived from the Roman god of the same name, the legendary lord of the underworld, ruler of the dead, and deity more often than not known by his earlier Grecian moniker Hades. And god of death he does initially seem to be; Pluto’s single-minded in pursuing his goals, letting little stand in his way as he reduces his opponents to heaps of scrap, all while displaying power no one, not even Astro himself, is capable of measuring up to. Despite this, however, he’s not a mindless destructive force - Pluto’s ruthless, but only towards his targets, and when unrelated parties (such as Dr. O’Shay, or Astro’s sister Uran) get involved, he does temporarily relent, postponing his battles until such time that he feels the fight might be had without endangering outside parties. Uran in particular is notable in her recurrence within the story; Astro’s initially third on Pluto’s hitlist, but due to various coincidences, his battle is perpetually postponed, and in an effort to force a fight, Pluto actively goes to his house, at which point he is greeted by an overly-eager little sister, who is in turn promptly snatched by Pluto in an attempt to lure Astro out once and for all. From that point on, he and Uran strike up a bit of an unlikely friendship, coming into contact with each other repeatedly and gradually developing Pluto’s fledgling personality beyond his simple destructive impulses. This bit of characterization is kept in pretty much every adaption of the story up to the present, including the 2003 series and this very game – the contrast between the cute, tomboyish little girl and the giant bringer of death create an interesting relationship, one which lends a bit more humanity to Pluto and makes him far more dynamic a character.  Unfortunately for Pluto himself, one of the major underlying themes of his arc is the fruitlessness of the quest for greatness, and indeed, Pluto himself eventually gets his comeuppance. It should be noted that, while he's indeed powerful, Pluto’s not invincible; Brando, his third target, injures Pluto to the point of immobility, requiring Astro’s intervention to save his life, while Epsilon’s bio already went over the underhanded methods Pluto resorted to to ensure his own victory. He is only powerful in the moment, and only invincible so far as his master, the Sultan, believes him to be, a fact O’shay consistently reminds the reader of – no matter how powerful the robot or person, eventually, a more powerful one will crop up to dethrone them, rendering their power meaningless. A large conflict within the story revolves around Astro’s decision to upgrade himself to take on Pluto, while Pluto himself is “upgraded” to explode upon his inevitable defeat in a bid to ensure no one will ever manage to outperform him and live. It’s presented as something of an arms race with no real winner, and ends the only way it really can – Pluto, finally reforming his ways after learning there’s more to existence than fighting, finds himself faced with a robot by the name of Bora, a robot twice as powerful as he, a robot which ultimately takes Pluto out just as Pluto had so many others, leaving only Astro standing to clean up the ashes. It’s a tragedy in the truest sense, and while there’s a few last-minute twists thrown in (revealing that Abullah, the man who built Pluto, also created Bora and did so in a contrived bid to teach the Sultan the error of his ways), it ultimately just leaves Astro standing alone, pondering the futility of the fight, standing tall as the World’s Greatest Robot, but taking no pleasure in the meaningless title. The themes of meaningless fights, of humans causing violence and destruction through their arrogance, and of the clashes between different cultures and races born through misunderstanding and hardship are consistent throughout both Pluto’s saga and Tezuka’s work in general, a product of the times they came from, and I have to imagine this, combined with the natural coolness of this kind of tournament of champions structure, helped to cement the arc as one of the most popular and enduring of its kind. Incidentally, these themes are a consistent presence within the game world as well, as is apparent with the ultimate mutual destruction of both sides depicted in-game. And, just as in the source story, at the end of it all, Astro’s left alone, pondering where everything went wrong.  The 2003 series, for its part, stays fairly on-track in its adaption, though effort is made to streamline the story enough to fit within a strict 2-episode Saturday morning broadcast. To this end, Pluto’s created by an enigmatic man named Shadow, who briefly appears in-game, but is an actual fully-fledged character in the anime. Shadow, in turn, is secretly a robot created by Dr. Tenma, Astro’s creator, in a line of logic that was basically “Robots are great! > Robots are better than humans! > A robot Roboticist must therefore be better than a human Roboticist! > I am going to build a robot Roboticist.” It is another bit of stunning reasoning from the man that brought you the little boy robot with built-in tight underpants and the angsty teenager robot that can generate hyberbeams. Regardless, Shadow and Tenma maintain the “man behind the man” dynamic that the Sultan and Abullah had originally, and Pluto himself still fights against more-or-less the same sequence of ‘bots he did originally, though they’re all conveniently located in and around Metro City and he’s more a tool to gauge Astro’s power this time around. It’s close enough that I can dig it, and stuff like that picture up there shows a decent amount of faithfulness as well – in all versions of the story prior, Pluto gets injured halfway through his list, and only survives because Astro can’t bring himself to finish off Pluto despite his better judgement, a favor which gets repaid later down the line and establishes Pluto as an honorable, if ruthless, warrior. As far as 2003 series goes, it’s a pretty direct translation, is what I’m saying.  And then, finally, in NAOKI URASAWA’S “PLUTO”™, Pluto is actually no you gently caress this is like the big BIG reveal, all the biggest tweeeests are built around him, go read it go read it go READDDD it Gamwhiz1 fucked around with this message at 00:29 on Apr 23, 2017 |
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Aug 28, 2015 19:05
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I just finished reading Pluto and it is every bit as gripping as the Also wow, that is a curveball that this game throws at you if I've ever seen one. I simply must play this game now. 
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Aug 29, 2015 15:31
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