Reviews on Rinsland's Corner

The One Piece Manga

Tue, 27 Feb 2024 10:40:05 -0600

Shōnen: One of the four demographic categories of manga, targeting boys 9-18.

I did it. I’m all caught up on the One Piece manga.

One Piece isn’t just a shōnen manga. It is the shōnen manga. There are many who came before, and many that came after, but this behemoth of a series created by Eiichiro Oda is the granddaddy of them all. It has been published in Shueisha’s Weekly Shōnen Jump since July of 1997 and has as of the time of writing this, 1108 chapters collected in 108 volumes.

NieR: Automata

Thu, 04 May 2023 10:53:02 -0500

So I finally got around to playing NieR: Automata. And then I beat it. And then I fully completed it.

NieR: Automata was published by Square Enix back in 2017, and developed by Platinum Games led by eccentric director and creative genius Yoko Taro. It is set in a post-apocalyptic world where humanity has fled to the moon after an invasion by alien machines. The story revolves around combat androids, 2B and 9S, as they fight to reclaim Earth from the machines and uncover the truth behind the conflict.

A Quick Thought on Hi-Fi Rush

Mon, 06 Feb 2023 12:28:08 -0600

Playing Hi-Fi Rush has made me realize just how absurdly good and criminally underrated the Ratchet & Clank level design over the years were. For pretty much every gen, though some argument could be made that Rift Apart leaned too heavily into the open world sandbox at times.

That’s not to say Hi-Fi Rush is bad, it’s just that they could have taken a lot of pointers from R&C’s level designs through the years to create a world that feels busy and expansive, while still being mostly linear guided levels that more often than not felt like they weren’t. Hi-Fi Rush is extremely guided, and I don’t even know why they have the constant literal glowing arrows pointing where to go that are everywhere, you can’t exactly backtrack through the level most (all?) of the time. It feels claustrophobic, but the rest of the design says they want the level to appear expansive and lived in.

Ajin: Demi Human

Thu, 19 Jan 2023 12:14:12 -0600

Ajin is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Gamon Sakurai. And it is really, really good. It is nothing more than a straight up action-horror manga with smart writing and cinematic art. It is built onan interesting premise, that certain people are starting to appear globally that simply regenerate back to life when they die, and supernatural creatures are involved.

2022 All Quiet On the Western Front Review

Sat, 29 Oct 2022 10:24:13 -0500

The new All Quiet on the Western Front movie is a fantastic WWI movie. It really, really is.

But it bears a resemblance to the book in name and character names only, which is massively disappointing. It did its own thing, and while it definitely showed the brutality of trench warfare, it missed everything else about what made the original story so powerful. The entire point of the book’s ending and how it relates to the title is gone.

Actually I am… (Review)

Thu, 06 Oct 2022 11:53:18 -0500

cover for Jitsu wa Watashi wa vol. 1

Jitsu wa Watashi wa (Translated as Actually I Am), is a Manga series written and illustrated by Eiji Masuda. It was published by Akita Shoten in Weekly Shōnen Champion and ran from January 2013 – February 2017. It has been collected into 22 volumes, with Seven Seas Entertainment translating and publishing it under the name My Monster Secret in North America starting in 2016. It has also been adapted into an anime, but I’m going to stick with the manga here.

The Book of Boba Fett Season 1

Fri, 11 Feb 2022 13:34:02 -0600

After watching the season, I found the show was best when… Boba Fett wasn’t actually in it. The Mando is what Boba should have been. Even Cad Bane was who Boba should have been.

Instead we got a dude who wanted to be a Crime Lord… who didn’t do any actual crime, and actively fought against actual criminals. If he wanted that, he should have just ran for mayor. The story would have made more sense if Boba had just ‘retired’ after his survival from the pit, claiming he was too old for his old life, and then got pulled back into things because

The Best Anime I watched in 2021

Tue, 18 Jan 2022 10:34:40 -0600

Koe no Katachi (A Silent Voice) [Anime and Manga] The manga is a deeply emotional experience, and it has a single panel with Shouko, one of the major characters, laying on a bed that I consider one of the most heart wrenching moments in a manga I’ve ever experienced. It’s a story about bullying, redemption, friendship, and hardship. It’s very heavy, as it revolves around a deaf girl who spend a part of her youth being bullied. But told from the perspective of her bully. The movie will make people cry, but it’s just a cliffs’ notes version of the manga. Definitely one of the most impactful things I’ve read and seen in a very long time.

Manga Current Reads January 2022 Edition

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 11:14:38 -0600

DanDaDan DanDaDan is weird. Really, really weird. In a WTF is going on I need more kind of way. I don’t really know where it’s going but I am really enjoying the characters. Momo Ayase believes in ghosts and supernatural, due to her grandmother (who is hilarious) being an exorcist. She does not believe in the existence aliens/ufos/etc. Ken Takakura is the exact opposite, he believes in aliens/ufos/etc, and does not believe in the existence of the supernatural. They challenge each other to visit a specific place that is ‘well known’ to (in Ken’s case) be a supernatural hotspot or (in Momo’s case) be an alien sighting spot. Turns out aliens exist, and the supernatural is real, and they wind up fighting for their lives. This manga goes from 0 to 100 really quick, with a fast pace, horror elements, and comedy wrapped into a coming-of-age adolescence story. I am really enjoying this one.

I Bought My Dream Gun

Wed, 05 Jan 2022 08:49:39 -0600

I bought a Whitney Wolverine. It’s a .22LR pistol, and the first gun I’ve ever purchased for no other reason than ‘I want it’. They have one of the most unique and beautiful designs I’ve ever seen in a pistol and I was over the moon about finally being able to get my hands on one. This particular one is in near perfect shape, even though I am pretty sure the original owner’s idea of cleaning it was to dump a little more oil into it. Not that I can really blame them, because these little dudes are not exactly easy to take apart and put back together, and they’ve got a bunch of tiny parts to them.

Control Ultimate Edition Review

Wed, 11 Aug 2021 11:42:32 -0500

I have no idea how this game slipped by me. I only just noticed it when it was on a Steam sale and picked it up on a whim (SCP feel, interesting combat system, and high production values? sounds like a good time to me).

I was absolutely blown away. It has everything I wanted from it. They manage to pull off that difficult always unsettling atmosphere, dropped in the straight up SCP style weirdness (seriously, it’s SCP in all but name), added in a massive dose of non-Cthulhu lovecraftian style horror and this thing made a straight up winner.

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

Tue, 06 Jul 2021 08:49:33 -0500

I’ve been playing the Ratchet & Clank series since the first one came bundled in the PS2 my family bought in the early 2000s. It is one of those random constants in my life, because I’m not usually much of a fan of the genre, but I have played and completed every mainline R&C game that has come out, and have collected physical copies of most of them, and do thoroughly enjoy them all. Even the 2016 game-based-on-movie-based-on-game remake/reboot. There’s a certain charm to them, and while the biting humor of the original PS2 series has gone away, it still has a whimsical fun to it the series where you’re a small furry creature ripping the galaxy a new one with a massive variety of absurd (and absurdly fun) weaponry.

Trying out Foundry VTT

Tue, 28 Jul 2020 12:27:29 -0500

I stumbled across FoundryVTT while browsing the interwebs and really liked the idea of having my own instanced VTT server, and it promises to be more responsive than Roll20. The one downside so far is they don’t have licensing for any game systems yet, so I’ve been having to copy/paste from my rulebooks into the library. I figured I’d try another go at Savage Worlds, and have been putting those rules into it. Once the rules are in there, everything works surprisingly well.

Final Fantasy XIV

Fri, 08 May 2020 22:59:14 -0500

That’s it. That’s the literal last minute of FFXIV: Shadowbringers. That clip may be my all time favorite moment in an MMO, and I regard it as one of the greatest endings to a story in an MMO, and possibly any RPG, of all time. Because when you get to it, you’ve probably played hundreds of hours, you’ve experienced a wild, wild ride of a story, and the player character’s interaction with the child is the perfect reminder of where your character has been, who your character is, and what you’re capable of in less than a minute as the credits roll, giving time for reflection as you watch names scroll across the screen. It’s perfect.

A Rant. Mostly About Game of Thrones

Sun, 19 May 2019 09:44:11 -0600

Having now caught up on Game of Thrones in preparation for it ending tonight, let me just state that if I were in charge of the forces at Winterfell fighting off the undead hordes, I could have done so for as long as the food held out. No cavalry, no siege weapons required. With those + dragons I could probably outright win, given the rules of the world.

Europa Universalis IV

Thu, 09 May 2019 11:18:48 -0600

I’m back in Europa Universalis IV. I can’t stay away from grand strategy forever, it always manages to suck me back in and cause sleepless nights. I am, however about $104 worth of DLC behind, because Paradox is crazy good about continually updating their games.

However, because it’s such a complex game, and there were a bunch of changes since I last played, my first game ended in catastrophe. The second went a little better, and then I hopped in to multiplayer with a very experienced friend as England, and was able to get fully into the swing of things again, crushing Scotland and the various Irish provinces, converting to Anglican (which was a new thing for me) and beginning colonial expansion. We spent a couple days on that game, and was able to appreciate some of the new nuances. For example, I really like the more autonomous nature of colonies now thanks to the addition of colonial nations, the new mission system, and government reforms.

Pawns and Pints

Sun, 22 Apr 2018 22:04:51 -0600

We went down to Pawns and Pints today to see what it was all about, and to try to hop into an Adventurer’s League D&D game. Unfortunately all the seats for the D&D game were full. However, my wife and I had some great drinks, and cracked open few random board games. Like Star Wars Stratego and the old classic Battleship. We decided we really need to make this a regular thing, because it was a ton of fun all around. Maybe we’ll actually even schedule ourselves into one of the D&D days.

Fortnite Battle Royale

Wed, 04 Apr 2018 15:35:52 -0600

I got sucked into Fortnite BR. I kept seeing how insanely popular it has become and had to check it out for myself. I’m not usually the kind of person who likes BR/Survival games in general, but the art style, and unique gameplay got me hooked. I will say however, I am terrible at building forts fast, and my method of gameplay can be considered ‘active conflict avoidance‘. Whenever I die, I am always left with the feeling that I could have done better, and the drive to be better next time. This is rare in a game genre that’s pretty much defined by getting killed from across the map with no chance to have done anything better other than just not be there at that specific moment.

Sea of Thieves Final Beta

Sun, 11 Mar 2018 09:36:27 -0600

I had an absolute blast playing the final open beta of Sea of Thieves. I’m really thinking I’ll buy this when it comes out. It’s all about being the pirate you always wanted to be. No real progression, other than cosmetics and earning reputation to get better ventures. I haven’t had this much fun on the seas since Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag. Which, I feel I may as well load up again while I wait for release of this game.

Initial Thor: Ragnarok reaction

Fri, 03 Nov 2017 03:04:29 +0000

Thor: Ragnarok was the Thor movie to end all Thor movies. It had pretty much everything, from scenes that would fit perfectly on album covers for power metal bands, the 80s norse retro future synthwave feel, some serious surprises, and by far the most hilarious comedy in the entire MCU. An extra special feat considering the subject matter (the literal apocalypse in Asguard) that really pulled it off.

Destiny vs Warframe

Mon, 30 Oct 2017 22:29:58 +0000

So, having completed Destiny 2’s story campaign and started on the post-story/max level stuff I feel good enough to state that the only real similarity between Destiny and Warframe is that they’re both Sci-Fi games based around a loot grind. But even how they go about doing the loot grind is different. The best analogy I found is Destiny 2 is a Movie and Warframe is a TV show. Destiny is gorgeous, it oozes AAA quality in every aspect from art, to music to VAs (Nathon Fillion as Cayde-6 is absolutely amazing), and you know it had the budget to match when making the game. This is your big budget blockbuster superhero movie. Warframe on the other hand is the TV Show that started out kinda rough (ok really rough) with next to no budget and through sheer charm managed to not only hit syndication, but continually grow their following every season. Due to its long history and low budget past, it has had its share of highs and lows, and it definitely has its share of odd quirks and unresolved loose ends, but where it’s at now is not only good, it’s being compared very favorably against these big budget blockbuster cinematic experiences.

Now this is Dogfighting

Sat, 30 Sep 2017 01:59:28 +0000

EVE: Valkyrie released this week. It is pretty much everything I’d ever want out of a space combat game. Lots of ships, lots of lasers/beams/guns/missiles/etc. Your ship feels tiny (in the EVE universe, you’re the fighters in the Carrier you can pilot on the MMO side of things) and your weapons feel great. I wish I had a VR system and a hotas joystick and I’d be in combat heaven. But nonetheless the Stix is my ship of choice, and I’m still trying to figure out whether I like the keyboard or gamepad more. I may just have to drop the money on a joystick if I can’t figure it out soon…

Latest Games

Wed, 06 Sep 2017 02:11:35 +0000

I’m addicted to this newish mobile game called Creature Quest. It’s adorable, there isn’t really any pay to win (or at least the premium currency drops exceptionally often, so casual players never feel left out). And they just introduced a little kingdom building element today. Silly mobile games, I love you.

Speaking of love, I absolutely loved the Destiny 2 PC open beta, and am actually really excited about playing it. Unfortunately PC release is late October. Bleh…

Valerian: City of a Thousand Planets Opening Scene

Mon, 10 Jul 2017 03:07:38 +0000

I went to see Spider-Man: Homecoming again today and they showed the opening scene of Valerian: City of a Thousand Planets. It blew me away.

It could have been its own short film, and it told the tale of humanity’s expansion and diplomatic missions via a space station in orbit around earth that began in the 1970s with each mission adding its own little bit to the station. As the years go by each mission adds its own bit to the station. Finally an alien race shows up, and it’s a peaceful first contact, and then another and another throughout many more years, and the station just gets bigger and bigger, until it was too big to be in Earth’s orbit anymore and they sent it off on a journey to continue its diplomatic legacy. It was such a heartwarming and positive thing and stands in such stark contrast to the generally expected first contact situations in the sci-fi genre. It was made even more beautiful because it was all set to Bowie’s Space Oddity.

Injustice 2

Mon, 05 Jun 2017 01:51:52 +0000

I’m usually really bad with fighting games, to the point I rarely go out of my way to play them anymore. That said… I’m still really bad at Injustice 2. I did make it through the entire story line with all the different paths on Medium difficulty though, so I’ve got that going for me.

Wonder Woman Has Got This

Fri, 02 Jun 2017 21:16:23 +0000

Wonder Woman has the definite potential to be DC’s Iron Man movie. That is, the movie that finally gets their superhero line off the ground. I will find it absolutely hilarious if Wonder Woman and Aquaman of all people wind up being the standout DC Movie characters.

I absolutely loved Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman. She is pretty much the living embodiment of the character on screen. Chris Pine did a fantastic Job as Steve Trevor, and the chemistry the two of them had on screen was phenomenal.