Thursday, October 28, 2010
Mario Kirby Masterpiece
Voices
Narrated by Mayumi Tanaka
Oh boy. I dunno if this should really be on the “Nintendo Animation System” blog as animation is a clear part of the title and this isn’t animation. Basically, there are some Chinese symbols that come up on the screen whilst in a small box a picture of a scene is shown. The Chinese symbols are narrating the story. The idea of this video is to teach Japanese children Chinese characters, so as an ignorant English viewer I really have no business complaining about something that was never aimed at me in the first place. Would I of liked it in school? (Primary school of course, or elementary school for you crazy Americans) Hell yeah I would, but then I would have been pleased to have a red cap back when I was a kid. Still I would have enjoyed having my favourite game hero trying to teach me another language. So I’m sure somewhere, for some poor sad case like me, this was a great memory, but for anyone looking for a cartoon, or actual fun and not planning on learning a language then really there’s no point in watching this.
One interesting thing though is the narration. It’s narrated by Mayumi Tanaka who apparently voiced some quite famous anime characters, like Monkey D Luffy in One Piece. She actually made me smile with Wario’s voice, I dunno why, maybe I’m far too easily impressed (well that much is obvious based on my reviews) but the fact I found the voice funny even without knowing what was going on must mean something, somewhere in the universe. Anyway, also cool are the pictures, just like the Mario OVAs, the artwork looks like it’s right out of the game manuals and boxart, which considering this is a glorified slideshow, at least makes it a nice enough looking glorified slide show (although not a work of art by any stretch of the imagination…)
As for the stories themselves. Well Mario fights Wario in his only, well “animated” appearance outside of adverts. As for the Kirby part, he’s the classic Kirby, as in a lot fatter and tries to help a dog find its mother or something. Then King Dedede shows up and in a real twist ending was he actually helps Kirby, then they all stuff their gullets full of food. Also interesting is that despite Dedede being based on his classic artwork, he looks a heck of a lot skinnier here.
And that’s it, it’s really hard to critique anything because really, this isn’t a cartoon, it’s just a learning video for kids in another language to my own, so really I can’t cry when the holy grail of Nintendo animation that I finally located turns out to be really more of a potty; not for the purpose I thought it would be and not aimed at my demographic (not that any of the stuff on here’s really aimed at my demographic, but still.) So I’d just say in conclusion, I’m sure it would have beaten some of the other crap I had to sit through at school.
And I can't believe I wrote so much on something that I didn't even understand...
Professor Layton
Title- And the Eternal Diva.
Voices
Hershel Layton/Inspector Chelmley-Christopher Robin Miller
Luke Triton- Maria Darling
Emmy Altava/Janice Quatlane- Emma Tate
Jean Descole/Don Paolo- Jonathon Keeble
First thing’s first, don’t worry about spoilers in this film, characters do appear from the games but mainly just in cameo roles.
This is something quite different for this site as it’s probably one of the first animations based on a game which isn’t a Nintendo franchise review on here. That said it’s a franchise that has mainly been on Nintendo systems, and whilst I can’t tell the future I think it will probably be mainly on their consoles for a long time. Also this is probably one of the few (relatively) new releases in the way of Nintendo animation, except Pokemon. Interestingly enough, the team behind this are also apparently the team behind the Pokemon anime (animation). Anyway, I just wanted to get that clear right away so you aren’t seething whilst reading this review thinking “What’s this guy on, Professor Layton’s not a Nintendo franchise!” (although if you really are seething with anger at something written on this stupid little blog I think you need to get out more, just like I do…)
Anyway, another way this differs from the typical review on this site, is that the games it’s based on are part movies in themselves, with animated cutscenes and voice acting. The plots of the games in a nutshell are that Professor Layton and his assistant Luke investigate various mysteries, and people they meet ask them to solve puzzles, sometimes the puzzles relate to the plot (like discovering the right key to use in a door.) and sometimes they’re unrelated and just random puzzles (this is addressed in the first game and makes sense in context, but in the later games doesn’t really make sense, not that I’m complaining about game logic…) Also on the DVD I got the first thing you see when you turn it on is an ad for the third game in the series. I was pretty impressed by the ad and it being the only ad on the DVD I found it pretty acceptable (compared to films with pretty unrelated ads, not even aimed at the same demographic as the film you’re watching.)
Anyway, on to the actual film. I’ve got to say I loved the opening. We get Layton solving a puzzle whilst telling Luke about the answer to a mystery, then Layton’s orchestrated theme kicks in and we’re given a panning out shot of London which reveals they’re on the top of Big Ben. We then get Layton with many of the characters from the first three games pointing out who the culprit behind it is, a little old lady who pulls her face off to reveal Don Paolo, Layton’s nemesis, who then making a humorous over the top “LAYTON YOU’LL PAY FOR THIS!” flies away with his umbrella helicopter blades. This is great as I was worried that the usual cast would be involved and it would all turn out to be Don Paolo behind it (not that I quite would have minded) but instead we get the best of both worlds with this opening. After that we get Luke telling the audience about the Professor and what he does. One cool part we get to see is Layton doing a lecture in the university he’s a professor at, which is something I haven’t seen in the games yet (although I haven’t played them all.)
The animation’s very nice, and whilst it’s not as great as say a Studio Ghibli film, it’s still really nice to look at. There is some CG which I’ve read others criticizing it for, but honestly, it doesn’t really stand out to me, I mean I could tell what was CG but it still fit in with the rest of the animation. Also I loved the music, with not just the main themes but even some of the smaller themes from the games (such as when doing a puzzle in the games) present. The new music was nice too.
The main part of the film is about a girl sending a letter and tickets to Professor Layton to see her sing on stage. She’s an ex-student of his and has recently met a small girl who told her that she was her best friend who had died reborn, and apparently knew things that seemed to back up her claim, so she wants Layton to figure out what’s going on. Layton goes to see her sing and is surprised that he and Luke are the only ones with any interest in her singing, with all the rest of the audience falling asleep. One thing to note about the girl, whose name is Janice is that her singing is done by the original Japanese voice actress. Now whilst it does sound noticeably different from the English voice it isn’t too noticeable. I mean whilst it isn’t the best singing I’ve heard, it’s competent enough, and I’d rather have a person who can sing than one who can’t (not that I’m saying the English voice can’t, just that if that’s the reason I’m fine with it.)
Anyway, a man then enters the stage and announces that now the real game will begin. This wakes the audience up, some of whom don’t have any idea what this is about and others in full knowledge. The plot is that the man on the stage has set up a series of puzzles to test the people present and determine who is worthy of the gift of eternal life. He then announces that only one person can claim the prize and all others will forfeit their lives as a result. Many people try to escape but are immediately sent falling into a trapdoor in the floor.
Now I don’t want to spoil the rest of the plot, but Layton then basically goes on to try to solve the mystery behind the whole situation. The plot being about eternal life, also brings up death as quite a prevalent topic, and surprisingly it’s not about murder at all (well except the attempted murder of the protagonists as otherwise there’d be no adventure.) We learn about why the various people have taken on this challenge, with some of them in it for eternal youth, others because of crippling injuries they hope to cure and in some cases because of relatives or they themselves have terminal illnesses. It’s quite a sad state of affairs especially as a lot of them do eventually die in the end (the credit sequence has a case of a girl by her grandfather’s grave that she was trying to save and another with one of the characters lying in his deathbed with a friend he made on the quest by his side.) Also the writer of the opera that Janice sings in had his daughter die (Janice’s friend who she believes has returned.) However the film never feels morbid at all despite all this talk of death.
Now this film is set immediately after the latest game in Japan called the Specter’s Flute which is a prequel game. So therefore there are some characters in this I don’t know about. One is Emmy who I don’t know anything about. In the film she seems quite capable being able to fight off many of the bad guy’s minions as well as conducting her own investigations. She also seems to take delight in taunting Luke saying he’s Layton’s “second” assistant. Overall I quite liked her actually, she didn’t become annoying at all like I feared she could. Next was a pretty hilarious Inspector who’s ridiculously badass, so much so that his chest hair almost looks like a beard. He gets knocked into shark infested waters at least three times, and outfights the sharks.
The final new guy is the main villain. Apparently this guy is the Don Paolo of the prequel trilogy. I thought he was great. The voice was smug, and it was great seeing him go into an insane rage when Layton noticed something he overlooked in his master plan. Whilst I like Don Paolo I don’t mind having another guy as a villain, plus this guy actually fights Layton with a sword at the end, which was a pretty awesome scene. One part that I really liked was how over the edge he seemed to go when he started furiously trying to just slice Layton apart destroying his plan in his rage.
The voices were great. I’m glad that Layton is actually voiced by a British voice actor, as I often find American attempts at a British accent irritating (as I’m sure Americans can find British attempts). I’ve heard people complaining about Luke’s voice, yeah it does stick out a bit, but really it’s still the same voice from the games and I didn’t find it that annoying after getting used to it in the games. Anyway the only voices different from the game were Don Paolo, Flora and Dr Schrader, who to be honest only had small roles and since one of them who literally said one word (Flora) is a US based voice actress and the recording for the English version was in the UK it really didn’t matter much. If they have a bigger role in the future then I’m pretty sure they’ll then voice their usual characters.
The only negatives I can come up with for the film are the sort of ad that’s part of the movie with Luke at the start saying about how the Layton series is a game series with this as its first step into being a film. It just seemed kinda pointless but still it was quick enough. Another one for some people (not me, I actually guessed that this was what happened before we saw it) is that they might feel the solution to the mystery is a little bit too science fiction, personally I think if you can accept Layton building an aircraft out of some spades and a chainsaw then you shouldn’t complain about the conclusion to the mystery (don’t want to spoil it.)
One final part, and the only one that involves anything to do with game to animation transition are the puzzles. I was worried about it when I first heard that they were going to incorporate the puzzles into the film as I thought it could be easy to have a stupid pause where you saw the puzzle and the audience had time to figure it out before Layton said the answer. Instead that was just me being stupid, and as much as I wanted to avoid sounding clichéd, they really did fit the puzzle solving in well. They even showed the counter that shows what number puzzle you’re working out through a hologram on the stage. Also the puzzles were made more interesting in that the “reward” for failing was death (or at least that’s what they were told.) The only thing they could of done to be any more faithful to the game would be a small scene were someone picked up hint coin up from a wall or something, but that wouldn’t really be of any relevance to the plot or anything so it’s a good job I’m not writing these films. Oh also, sharp eyed people can spot many cameos from the games in crowd scenes. I managed to find Granny Riddleton in a café and that guy who owns the train in the second game in the theatre.
Overall a great movie, and one of, if not the best film based on a game series. If they do make this into a film series as planned (one every Christmas) then I can’t wait.
Voices
Hershel Layton/Inspector Chelmley-Christopher Robin Miller
Luke Triton- Maria Darling
Emmy Altava/Janice Quatlane- Emma Tate
Jean Descole/Don Paolo- Jonathon Keeble
First thing’s first, don’t worry about spoilers in this film, characters do appear from the games but mainly just in cameo roles.
This is something quite different for this site as it’s probably one of the first animations based on a game which isn’t a Nintendo franchise review on here. That said it’s a franchise that has mainly been on Nintendo systems, and whilst I can’t tell the future I think it will probably be mainly on their consoles for a long time. Also this is probably one of the few (relatively) new releases in the way of Nintendo animation, except Pokemon. Interestingly enough, the team behind this are also apparently the team behind the Pokemon anime (animation). Anyway, I just wanted to get that clear right away so you aren’t seething whilst reading this review thinking “What’s this guy on, Professor Layton’s not a Nintendo franchise!” (although if you really are seething with anger at something written on this stupid little blog I think you need to get out more, just like I do…)
Anyway, another way this differs from the typical review on this site, is that the games it’s based on are part movies in themselves, with animated cutscenes and voice acting. The plots of the games in a nutshell are that Professor Layton and his assistant Luke investigate various mysteries, and people they meet ask them to solve puzzles, sometimes the puzzles relate to the plot (like discovering the right key to use in a door.) and sometimes they’re unrelated and just random puzzles (this is addressed in the first game and makes sense in context, but in the later games doesn’t really make sense, not that I’m complaining about game logic…) Also on the DVD I got the first thing you see when you turn it on is an ad for the third game in the series. I was pretty impressed by the ad and it being the only ad on the DVD I found it pretty acceptable (compared to films with pretty unrelated ads, not even aimed at the same demographic as the film you’re watching.)
Anyway, on to the actual film. I’ve got to say I loved the opening. We get Layton solving a puzzle whilst telling Luke about the answer to a mystery, then Layton’s orchestrated theme kicks in and we’re given a panning out shot of London which reveals they’re on the top of Big Ben. We then get Layton with many of the characters from the first three games pointing out who the culprit behind it is, a little old lady who pulls her face off to reveal Don Paolo, Layton’s nemesis, who then making a humorous over the top “LAYTON YOU’LL PAY FOR THIS!” flies away with his umbrella helicopter blades. This is great as I was worried that the usual cast would be involved and it would all turn out to be Don Paolo behind it (not that I quite would have minded) but instead we get the best of both worlds with this opening. After that we get Luke telling the audience about the Professor and what he does. One cool part we get to see is Layton doing a lecture in the university he’s a professor at, which is something I haven’t seen in the games yet (although I haven’t played them all.)
The animation’s very nice, and whilst it’s not as great as say a Studio Ghibli film, it’s still really nice to look at. There is some CG which I’ve read others criticizing it for, but honestly, it doesn’t really stand out to me, I mean I could tell what was CG but it still fit in with the rest of the animation. Also I loved the music, with not just the main themes but even some of the smaller themes from the games (such as when doing a puzzle in the games) present. The new music was nice too.
The main part of the film is about a girl sending a letter and tickets to Professor Layton to see her sing on stage. She’s an ex-student of his and has recently met a small girl who told her that she was her best friend who had died reborn, and apparently knew things that seemed to back up her claim, so she wants Layton to figure out what’s going on. Layton goes to see her sing and is surprised that he and Luke are the only ones with any interest in her singing, with all the rest of the audience falling asleep. One thing to note about the girl, whose name is Janice is that her singing is done by the original Japanese voice actress. Now whilst it does sound noticeably different from the English voice it isn’t too noticeable. I mean whilst it isn’t the best singing I’ve heard, it’s competent enough, and I’d rather have a person who can sing than one who can’t (not that I’m saying the English voice can’t, just that if that’s the reason I’m fine with it.)
Anyway, a man then enters the stage and announces that now the real game will begin. This wakes the audience up, some of whom don’t have any idea what this is about and others in full knowledge. The plot is that the man on the stage has set up a series of puzzles to test the people present and determine who is worthy of the gift of eternal life. He then announces that only one person can claim the prize and all others will forfeit their lives as a result. Many people try to escape but are immediately sent falling into a trapdoor in the floor.
Now I don’t want to spoil the rest of the plot, but Layton then basically goes on to try to solve the mystery behind the whole situation. The plot being about eternal life, also brings up death as quite a prevalent topic, and surprisingly it’s not about murder at all (well except the attempted murder of the protagonists as otherwise there’d be no adventure.) We learn about why the various people have taken on this challenge, with some of them in it for eternal youth, others because of crippling injuries they hope to cure and in some cases because of relatives or they themselves have terminal illnesses. It’s quite a sad state of affairs especially as a lot of them do eventually die in the end (the credit sequence has a case of a girl by her grandfather’s grave that she was trying to save and another with one of the characters lying in his deathbed with a friend he made on the quest by his side.) Also the writer of the opera that Janice sings in had his daughter die (Janice’s friend who she believes has returned.) However the film never feels morbid at all despite all this talk of death.
Now this film is set immediately after the latest game in Japan called the Specter’s Flute which is a prequel game. So therefore there are some characters in this I don’t know about. One is Emmy who I don’t know anything about. In the film she seems quite capable being able to fight off many of the bad guy’s minions as well as conducting her own investigations. She also seems to take delight in taunting Luke saying he’s Layton’s “second” assistant. Overall I quite liked her actually, she didn’t become annoying at all like I feared she could. Next was a pretty hilarious Inspector who’s ridiculously badass, so much so that his chest hair almost looks like a beard. He gets knocked into shark infested waters at least three times, and outfights the sharks.
The final new guy is the main villain. Apparently this guy is the Don Paolo of the prequel trilogy. I thought he was great. The voice was smug, and it was great seeing him go into an insane rage when Layton noticed something he overlooked in his master plan. Whilst I like Don Paolo I don’t mind having another guy as a villain, plus this guy actually fights Layton with a sword at the end, which was a pretty awesome scene. One part that I really liked was how over the edge he seemed to go when he started furiously trying to just slice Layton apart destroying his plan in his rage.
The voices were great. I’m glad that Layton is actually voiced by a British voice actor, as I often find American attempts at a British accent irritating (as I’m sure Americans can find British attempts). I’ve heard people complaining about Luke’s voice, yeah it does stick out a bit, but really it’s still the same voice from the games and I didn’t find it that annoying after getting used to it in the games. Anyway the only voices different from the game were Don Paolo, Flora and Dr Schrader, who to be honest only had small roles and since one of them who literally said one word (Flora) is a US based voice actress and the recording for the English version was in the UK it really didn’t matter much. If they have a bigger role in the future then I’m pretty sure they’ll then voice their usual characters.
The only negatives I can come up with for the film are the sort of ad that’s part of the movie with Luke at the start saying about how the Layton series is a game series with this as its first step into being a film. It just seemed kinda pointless but still it was quick enough. Another one for some people (not me, I actually guessed that this was what happened before we saw it) is that they might feel the solution to the mystery is a little bit too science fiction, personally I think if you can accept Layton building an aircraft out of some spades and a chainsaw then you shouldn’t complain about the conclusion to the mystery (don’t want to spoil it.)
One final part, and the only one that involves anything to do with game to animation transition are the puzzles. I was worried about it when I first heard that they were going to incorporate the puzzles into the film as I thought it could be easy to have a stupid pause where you saw the puzzle and the audience had time to figure it out before Layton said the answer. Instead that was just me being stupid, and as much as I wanted to avoid sounding clichéd, they really did fit the puzzle solving in well. They even showed the counter that shows what number puzzle you’re working out through a hologram on the stage. Also the puzzles were made more interesting in that the “reward” for failing was death (or at least that’s what they were told.) The only thing they could of done to be any more faithful to the game would be a small scene were someone picked up hint coin up from a wall or something, but that wouldn’t really be of any relevance to the plot or anything so it’s a good job I’m not writing these films. Oh also, sharp eyed people can spot many cameos from the games in crowd scenes. I managed to find Granny Riddleton in a café and that guy who owns the train in the second game in the theatre.
Overall a great movie, and one of, if not the best film based on a game series. If they do make this into a film series as planned (one every Christmas) then I can’t wait.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Puss in Boots
Title- Puss in Boots Travels Around the World in 80 days.
Voices
Osami Nabe- Pero
Chikao Ôtsuka- Dr. Garigari
Takuzô Kamiyama- Carter
Sanji Hase- Killer A
Isamu Tanonaka- Killer B
Ado Mizumori- Killer C
Well here’s something I thought about doing for a while now. A review of Puss in Boots. Don’t worry, I’m not going to be reviewing any film that happened to have a game adaptation, but this is a special case. Mainly as Pero the Cat had a whole episode based around him in Captain N and he was one of the only characters I believe from outside of the games industry to be given such a prominent role (well barring Bo Jackson and the other guy, and Wombatman doesn’t count) So I was pretty interested in seeing how he was in his own show.
First of all, a little history lesson. Toei Animation had a series of films starring a character based on Puss in Boots from the Folklore tale. There were three films in total and since I haven’t even seen or read the original Puss in Boots, let alone the other two movies I can’t say how much they follow the original. This movie, was also based on the story of “Around the World in 80 days” although I can’t say I’ve read that either, so I’m not sure how close the story is to that. Basically, the third film in the series had a game adaptation. It was a pretty average, except the ridiculously cheap final boss. When the game came to the US, the story was changed rather radically, possibly to avoid the “Around the World in 80 days” similarities due to copyright. I dunno. Basically in the US version, Pero the Cat worked for Count Grueman. One day the Count found a mouse and told Pero to deal with it. Pero being a kindhearted cat, let the mouse leave rather than kill it. Grueman then decided that Pero was useless, so he tested his time machine on him to send him into the past. Pero’s mission is to find and beat Grueman and Dr Gari Gari (the scientist behind the machine) and use the time machine to return home. Meanwhile the Cat Kingdom has sent some assassins after Pero for breaching their code of conduct by letting the mouse live.
Puss in Boots would have faded into obscurity, if it weren’t for the strange fact, that someone out there was enough of a fan to actually write an episode of Captain N starring Puss in Boots, or Pero. The episode followed the US storyline and if you’ve read my review of it you’ll know I like the episode and it’s one of my favourites as it’s surprisingly one of the few episodes which pretty much follows the game’s storyline solely and Kevin’s just along for the ride. Enough about that though, what about this movie itself? Well it’s different in certain ways, but I was actually surprised by some of the similarities. Since this isn’t one of my “History in Animation” articles I think I’ll just say what differences I preferred in the characters etc.
So firstly Pero himself. Well, despite a different look, Pero’s actually pretty much the same character, which really surprised me given Captain N’s usual standard for changing things. The only real difference, is that this version’s obviously already had two films, so we’re not really being introduced to him. The only thing you really need to know, is that Pero is an outcast from the Cat Kingdom for releasing a mouse, similar to the US story, but I think that was the overall plot of the first movie, so now, a comedy trio of Cat assassins are after Pero, and have been from the sounds of it for two whole movies now. On the subject of the Cat assassins, it’s actually quite interesting, in the movie they are initially separate from Dr Gari Gari and Count Grueman, but join up with him later. Whilst I thought that the Captain N versions were just henchmen for them, it’s possible they actually have a similar story to the original versions, mainly as it’s clear in Captain N that they’ve been hunting Pero a while before Kevin gets involved. There’s also only two Cat assassins in Captain N, whereas there are 3 here. Overall, I prefer the Captain N version as except for the youngest, the other two cat assassins don’t really have any personality, whereas the Captain N version, at least has the dumb big guy and the weasel-like little one. Also the assassins in the Captain N episode actually dress for the setting, whereas in this movie they don’t that often.
Next up, we get what seem to be all the new characters. Firstly there’s a Hippo called Carter who seems to be Pero’s best friend. At first I thought he was in all the movies, but now I’m not too sure, especially as at the end Pero leaves him to carry on running from the assassins (he doesn’t leave Carter for the assassins to get of course.) Then there are two mice who are pretty obviously just in this film as they are just two of a family of 20 in the restaurant Pero’s working at at the start of the movie. Finally there are the two villains. Count Grueman is a rich fat pig who basically bets Pero his whole fortune that he can’t go around the world in 80 days and reach the top of the clock tower in the town he starts from. Of course as he’s a villain he sees to it that Pero can’t make it. He’s very different from the Captain N version as he doesn’t personally enter the fray until the very end, and even then most of the time he’s simply laughing at Pero whilst he struggles to find a way to climb the tower since Grueman’s basically just locked the doors leading to stairs upwards. Overall this is a far better villain than the Captain N version since this guy’s a businessman villain who despite his hugeness very rarely gets his hands dirty himself. The final character to mention is Dr Gari Gari. Here he’s portrayed as far more cool, he’s basically a mercenary who builds giant machines to trap or kill Pero. He can be pretty evil at times like when he tries to kill a baby Seal, but he strangely seems to view his job as more of a competition than a true battle. He’s even seen looking at Pero with admiration in the ending.
As for the film itself, I enjoyed it. The only part that ever so slightly lagged was a bit with them in the igloo, but it wasn’t too long. The movie had some pretty fun action scenes, highlights being the car chase, plane chase and the final battle in the clock tower. There were some very interesting breaks from the norm in the story, such as the only possible love interest being actually just some cat who seduces and drugs Pero in order to make him lose three days sleeping. Then there’s the fact noone really dies, which could be seen as a good or bad thing. Personally I felt the way Count Grueman was left was probably worse than death for him (not in a violent way though.)
Overall a really fun movie. If you enjoyed the Captain N episode it’s worth checking out, if only for curiosities sake.
Voices
Osami Nabe- Pero
Chikao Ôtsuka- Dr. Garigari
Takuzô Kamiyama- Carter
Sanji Hase- Killer A
Isamu Tanonaka- Killer B
Ado Mizumori- Killer C
Well here’s something I thought about doing for a while now. A review of Puss in Boots. Don’t worry, I’m not going to be reviewing any film that happened to have a game adaptation, but this is a special case. Mainly as Pero the Cat had a whole episode based around him in Captain N and he was one of the only characters I believe from outside of the games industry to be given such a prominent role (well barring Bo Jackson and the other guy, and Wombatman doesn’t count) So I was pretty interested in seeing how he was in his own show.
First of all, a little history lesson. Toei Animation had a series of films starring a character based on Puss in Boots from the Folklore tale. There were three films in total and since I haven’t even seen or read the original Puss in Boots, let alone the other two movies I can’t say how much they follow the original. This movie, was also based on the story of “Around the World in 80 days” although I can’t say I’ve read that either, so I’m not sure how close the story is to that. Basically, the third film in the series had a game adaptation. It was a pretty average, except the ridiculously cheap final boss. When the game came to the US, the story was changed rather radically, possibly to avoid the “Around the World in 80 days” similarities due to copyright. I dunno. Basically in the US version, Pero the Cat worked for Count Grueman. One day the Count found a mouse and told Pero to deal with it. Pero being a kindhearted cat, let the mouse leave rather than kill it. Grueman then decided that Pero was useless, so he tested his time machine on him to send him into the past. Pero’s mission is to find and beat Grueman and Dr Gari Gari (the scientist behind the machine) and use the time machine to return home. Meanwhile the Cat Kingdom has sent some assassins after Pero for breaching their code of conduct by letting the mouse live.
Puss in Boots would have faded into obscurity, if it weren’t for the strange fact, that someone out there was enough of a fan to actually write an episode of Captain N starring Puss in Boots, or Pero. The episode followed the US storyline and if you’ve read my review of it you’ll know I like the episode and it’s one of my favourites as it’s surprisingly one of the few episodes which pretty much follows the game’s storyline solely and Kevin’s just along for the ride. Enough about that though, what about this movie itself? Well it’s different in certain ways, but I was actually surprised by some of the similarities. Since this isn’t one of my “History in Animation” articles I think I’ll just say what differences I preferred in the characters etc.
So firstly Pero himself. Well, despite a different look, Pero’s actually pretty much the same character, which really surprised me given Captain N’s usual standard for changing things. The only real difference, is that this version’s obviously already had two films, so we’re not really being introduced to him. The only thing you really need to know, is that Pero is an outcast from the Cat Kingdom for releasing a mouse, similar to the US story, but I think that was the overall plot of the first movie, so now, a comedy trio of Cat assassins are after Pero, and have been from the sounds of it for two whole movies now. On the subject of the Cat assassins, it’s actually quite interesting, in the movie they are initially separate from Dr Gari Gari and Count Grueman, but join up with him later. Whilst I thought that the Captain N versions were just henchmen for them, it’s possible they actually have a similar story to the original versions, mainly as it’s clear in Captain N that they’ve been hunting Pero a while before Kevin gets involved. There’s also only two Cat assassins in Captain N, whereas there are 3 here. Overall, I prefer the Captain N version as except for the youngest, the other two cat assassins don’t really have any personality, whereas the Captain N version, at least has the dumb big guy and the weasel-like little one. Also the assassins in the Captain N episode actually dress for the setting, whereas in this movie they don’t that often.
Next up, we get what seem to be all the new characters. Firstly there’s a Hippo called Carter who seems to be Pero’s best friend. At first I thought he was in all the movies, but now I’m not too sure, especially as at the end Pero leaves him to carry on running from the assassins (he doesn’t leave Carter for the assassins to get of course.) Then there are two mice who are pretty obviously just in this film as they are just two of a family of 20 in the restaurant Pero’s working at at the start of the movie. Finally there are the two villains. Count Grueman is a rich fat pig who basically bets Pero his whole fortune that he can’t go around the world in 80 days and reach the top of the clock tower in the town he starts from. Of course as he’s a villain he sees to it that Pero can’t make it. He’s very different from the Captain N version as he doesn’t personally enter the fray until the very end, and even then most of the time he’s simply laughing at Pero whilst he struggles to find a way to climb the tower since Grueman’s basically just locked the doors leading to stairs upwards. Overall this is a far better villain than the Captain N version since this guy’s a businessman villain who despite his hugeness very rarely gets his hands dirty himself. The final character to mention is Dr Gari Gari. Here he’s portrayed as far more cool, he’s basically a mercenary who builds giant machines to trap or kill Pero. He can be pretty evil at times like when he tries to kill a baby Seal, but he strangely seems to view his job as more of a competition than a true battle. He’s even seen looking at Pero with admiration in the ending.
As for the film itself, I enjoyed it. The only part that ever so slightly lagged was a bit with them in the igloo, but it wasn’t too long. The movie had some pretty fun action scenes, highlights being the car chase, plane chase and the final battle in the clock tower. There were some very interesting breaks from the norm in the story, such as the only possible love interest being actually just some cat who seduces and drugs Pero in order to make him lose three days sleeping. Then there’s the fact noone really dies, which could be seen as a good or bad thing. Personally I felt the way Count Grueman was left was probably worse than death for him (not in a violent way though.)
Overall a really fun movie. If you enjoyed the Captain N episode it’s worth checking out, if only for curiosities sake.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Donkey Kong Country Episode 5
Title- Kong for a day
‘Now for a Barrel Roll!’ = why Funky rocks. ‘Take a chill pill Diddy, I haven’t got a future, and do I look bummed?’ Funky rocks so hard lol. Also I forgot to mention, but its cool Diddy actually jumps on his hat when he’s angry like in the first game. This episode’s awesome.
I admit I was looking forward to seeing this episode as it was the first one with Dixie in it, who was always my favorite playable character in the games. I read that her character was completely changed, and the picture of her I found when first looking up the series looked awful, which is funny as she actually looks completely better in the actual episode. She looks pretty similar to the games version, with the only real difference being her shirt or whatever you call it.
This episode was really enjoyable and had some great parts. In fact the only part I didn’t like was how DK became outcast, I mean it was pretty stupid for them all to blame DK because of a banana, I mean yeah it’s a kids show, but at least AOSMB3 actually made smarter reasons (although still pretty dumb sometimes) for things than ‘It’s a banana that grows on the island so it must be DK!’.
We got more fun with Diddy becoming future ruler, which was pretty funny actually, especially his fighting which consisted of being shot and running around whilst being bitten by the Klaptraps.
Oh and the thing with Krusha being able to do perfect imitations was cool, and the scene with DK and Dixie seemed kinda creepy, and very strange for a kids cartoon.
Also I want to take this point to say, that DK’s voice actor is a great singer, I actually really enjoyed his song when he’s outcast and didn’t find it a part to skip like I do sometimes with guys like Klump and Skurvey.
Overall probably my favourite so far.
‘Now for a Barrel Roll!’ = why Funky rocks. ‘Take a chill pill Diddy, I haven’t got a future, and do I look bummed?’ Funky rocks so hard lol. Also I forgot to mention, but its cool Diddy actually jumps on his hat when he’s angry like in the first game. This episode’s awesome.
I admit I was looking forward to seeing this episode as it was the first one with Dixie in it, who was always my favorite playable character in the games. I read that her character was completely changed, and the picture of her I found when first looking up the series looked awful, which is funny as she actually looks completely better in the actual episode. She looks pretty similar to the games version, with the only real difference being her shirt or whatever you call it.
This episode was really enjoyable and had some great parts. In fact the only part I didn’t like was how DK became outcast, I mean it was pretty stupid for them all to blame DK because of a banana, I mean yeah it’s a kids show, but at least AOSMB3 actually made smarter reasons (although still pretty dumb sometimes) for things than ‘It’s a banana that grows on the island so it must be DK!’.
We got more fun with Diddy becoming future ruler, which was pretty funny actually, especially his fighting which consisted of being shot and running around whilst being bitten by the Klaptraps.
Oh and the thing with Krusha being able to do perfect imitations was cool, and the scene with DK and Dixie seemed kinda creepy, and very strange for a kids cartoon.
Also I want to take this point to say, that DK’s voice actor is a great singer, I actually really enjoyed his song when he’s outcast and didn’t find it a part to skip like I do sometimes with guys like Klump and Skurvey.
Overall probably my favourite so far.
Donkey Kong Country Episode 4
Title- Barrel, Barrel, who’s got the Barrel?
I dunno where they came up with Bluster from. I think he might have been an extremely exaggerated version of Swanky, mainly due to them liking money, but Swanky was never really that money hungry. It’s a shame he and Wrinkly never appeared, as it would have been nice to actually see some interaction between Cranky and Wrinkly, as it never happened in the games.
Anyway, this is a pretty good episode. We get Bluster at his worst so far, DK beating on more fools, K Rool with an actual plan other than simply stealing the coconut (which makes sense as by now no one seems to know what to do with it when they get it anyway) and an actual entire change in location, to the snow place. Oh also an appearance by Funky and the first appearance of Eddie the Yeti (who humorously is just a white DK, which is funny since in Brawl DK has a white colour, and since the series was actually popular in Japan apparently, maybe it’s an actual homage?) Also the mine carts make their first true appearance.
Anyway, overall probably the best episode so far (unless Bad Hair day is better when I see it)
I dunno where they came up with Bluster from. I think he might have been an extremely exaggerated version of Swanky, mainly due to them liking money, but Swanky was never really that money hungry. It’s a shame he and Wrinkly never appeared, as it would have been nice to actually see some interaction between Cranky and Wrinkly, as it never happened in the games.
Anyway, this is a pretty good episode. We get Bluster at his worst so far, DK beating on more fools, K Rool with an actual plan other than simply stealing the coconut (which makes sense as by now no one seems to know what to do with it when they get it anyway) and an actual entire change in location, to the snow place. Oh also an appearance by Funky and the first appearance of Eddie the Yeti (who humorously is just a white DK, which is funny since in Brawl DK has a white colour, and since the series was actually popular in Japan apparently, maybe it’s an actual homage?) Also the mine carts make their first true appearance.
Anyway, overall probably the best episode so far (unless Bad Hair day is better when I see it)
Donkey Kong Country Episode 3
Title- Booty and the Beast
What’s worse than pirates? Singing pirates of course. I admit, it made me laugh, and Neil Ross isn’t too bad at voicing a pirate and singing. This was a pretty good episode actually, especially the part where Cranky tries to tell DK not to come inside subtly and DK being his usual stupid self just walks in.
DK actually fought some people here, which was cool, as he should be strong enough to win a fight, I mean if he’s dumb and runs away from more enemies than fights them, like characters in most non-superhero cartoons then he really wouldn’t be much of a hero at all. The Klaptrap was kinda weird, and the ending was even slightly sinister, with him implying he might eat DK or the Crystal Coconut at some point.
Overall a pretty good episode.
What’s worse than pirates? Singing pirates of course. I admit, it made me laugh, and Neil Ross isn’t too bad at voicing a pirate and singing. This was a pretty good episode actually, especially the part where Cranky tries to tell DK not to come inside subtly and DK being his usual stupid self just walks in.
DK actually fought some people here, which was cool, as he should be strong enough to win a fight, I mean if he’s dumb and runs away from more enemies than fights them, like characters in most non-superhero cartoons then he really wouldn’t be much of a hero at all. The Klaptrap was kinda weird, and the ending was even slightly sinister, with him implying he might eat DK or the Crystal Coconut at some point.
Overall a pretty good episode.
Donkey Kong Country Episode 2
Title- Ape Foo Young
The second episode, and the first episode I saw with Candy Kong. Why is that important? Because honestly, I can’t stand this version of Candy. I guess it's because they changed her so radically, compared to the others who had the odd tweak but still had a similar design. I could stand her having a different personality, but the way they just completely changed her design was kinda pointless. All I mean is, if she wasn't called Candy, she wouldn't even really be her. That said, I guess I agree that Candy was never one of the best characters in the games, in fact they dropped her after the first one and she didn't return until the N64 game.
Anyway, what about the actual episode? Well it was pretty crap to be honest. I mean there were bonuses, such as Cranky actually trying to regain his original glory and Baby Donkey Kong, who actually is in the games now. Baby Kong is also the reason this episode sucks. This is since the majority of the episode is spent on a corny chase for baby DK and that’s about it. Also there’s the typical King Krool running around with Crystal Coconut and it getting tossed around to everyone.
Another thing I have to mention, is that it’s strange how both Cranky getting involved in potion making and the Crystal Coconut(s) originated here, and appeared later in DK64.
Overall, pretty boring episode, with a couple of good points, like Diddy trying to be a hero and failing miserably, and Cranky’s youth, but it spends far too much time with Baby DK.
The second episode, and the first episode I saw with Candy Kong. Why is that important? Because honestly, I can’t stand this version of Candy. I guess it's because they changed her so radically, compared to the others who had the odd tweak but still had a similar design. I could stand her having a different personality, but the way they just completely changed her design was kinda pointless. All I mean is, if she wasn't called Candy, she wouldn't even really be her. That said, I guess I agree that Candy was never one of the best characters in the games, in fact they dropped her after the first one and she didn't return until the N64 game.
Anyway, what about the actual episode? Well it was pretty crap to be honest. I mean there were bonuses, such as Cranky actually trying to regain his original glory and Baby Donkey Kong, who actually is in the games now. Baby Kong is also the reason this episode sucks. This is since the majority of the episode is spent on a corny chase for baby DK and that’s about it. Also there’s the typical King Krool running around with Crystal Coconut and it getting tossed around to everyone.
Another thing I have to mention, is that it’s strange how both Cranky getting involved in potion making and the Crystal Coconut(s) originated here, and appeared later in DK64.
Overall, pretty boring episode, with a couple of good points, like Diddy trying to be a hero and failing miserably, and Cranky’s youth, but it spends far too much time with Baby DK.
Donkey Kong Country Episode 1
Title- Bad Hair day
New/Guest voices
Richard Yearwood — Donkey Kong
Andrew Sabiston — Diddy Kong; Junior the Giant Klaptrap
Joy Tanner — Candy Kong; Baby Kong; Robot Candy Clone
Aron Tager — Cranky Kong
Ben Campbell — King K. Rool
Louise Vallace — Dixie Kong
Donald Burda — Bluster Kong
Damon D'Oliveira — Funky Kong
Len Carlson — Klump (season 1); King K. Rool (first episode)
Ron Rubin — Krusha (season 1)
Frank Welker — Krusha (season 2)
Lawrence Bayne — Kritter
Charles Adler — Polly Roger
Rick Jones — Inka Dinka Doo
Adrian Truss — Eddie the Mean Old Yeti
Neil Ross — Kaptain Skurvy; Klump (season 2)
John Stocker — Kutlass
Dan Hennessey — Green Kroc
I remember when I was a kid, I read in my Nintendo Magazine that there was a show based on Donkey Kong Country on Fox Kids. This was back at the time when it seemed to be a rarity to have sky or even cable, so I never got a chance to see it, which really irritated me. I grew up with Donkey Kong Country, and even now I love the games, despite how much they are called average etc by most people. I let my imagination run wild about what could be on this show, with me imagining how all my favorite characters would sound and act. Many years later, when I learnt that you can find out about almost anything on the web, I searched for the show, and saw some pictures of it. It horrified me, I was expecting the series to look like the art, which was kinda stupid of me considering how primitive 3d animation was at the time, and how every single game related cartoon I’d seen was vastly different from their respective games concept art etc.
I honestly never thought I’d bother watching the show, as I’d read a bit about it and it put me off, with me reading about singing and other corny stuff. I decided however to bite the bullet and watch a few episodes, as at this point I’m running low on series that are doable without seeming like a mammoth task (like the Kirby anime, Mario Bros Super Show or Pokemon) so here we are. I’ve watched a couple of episodes so far, and my general opinion is, I would of liked this series as a kid, and I admit I do like parts of it now. The main part that I like is the characters who I liked from the games, such as Funky and Cranky. Quite a few of the characters described personalities from the games are perfectly intact here, with Funky’s laidback surfer attitude, but his keen mechanic mind, and Cranky’s cutting remarks. A couple of characters do surprise, like Diddy being a cowardly Luigi type, but others like DK are completely as I imagined they’d be.
Anyway, on to the actual episode. Well it’s pretty clear it’s the first episode. We get Cranky telling the audience about the Crystal Coconut and how K Rool wants it as whoever has it is king of the Island. It’s funny how the thing still seems to do nothing more than show pictures of people, kinda like a coconut TV. Anyway, we get K Rool actually do like a smart villain and just all out attack the cabin, and as we get to see he gets his ass kicked by DK. It’s pretty cool and does illustrate why he has to try these convoluted plans rather than outright taking the coconut.
Anyway, the basic plot is taken from the story of Sampson. DK is put under a curse by having a robot version of Candy Kong cut his hair, therefore taking all his strength away. It’s a pretty good set up as we’re shown things that he does before with ease now being impossible, such as him hitting the button for his elevator system. What really freaked me out though, is that that quiff DK has, is actually skin under his hair, as in he has two protrusions in his skull on the top of his head. It looks really gross.
One interesting thing, is that Krusha seems much more intelligent here than in later episodes. Of course that’s common in most pilots, but here it’s interesting that he ends the episode with the crap kicked out of him. I wonder if that actually caused his future stupidity, pretty violent fight if so, it’s not actually shown though so who knows.
Overall a pretty good episode. I mainly liked the fact that DK wasn’t shown to learn that he doesn’t need to rely on his strength and that the "power was iside him all along" or that "His mind could help him win regardless of power", instead he just gets it back and kicks ass, plus the ending was funny.
New/Guest voices
Richard Yearwood — Donkey Kong
Andrew Sabiston — Diddy Kong; Junior the Giant Klaptrap
Joy Tanner — Candy Kong; Baby Kong; Robot Candy Clone
Aron Tager — Cranky Kong
Ben Campbell — King K. Rool
Louise Vallace — Dixie Kong
Donald Burda — Bluster Kong
Damon D'Oliveira — Funky Kong
Len Carlson — Klump (season 1); King K. Rool (first episode)
Ron Rubin — Krusha (season 1)
Frank Welker — Krusha (season 2)
Lawrence Bayne — Kritter
Charles Adler — Polly Roger
Rick Jones — Inka Dinka Doo
Adrian Truss — Eddie the Mean Old Yeti
Neil Ross — Kaptain Skurvy; Klump (season 2)
John Stocker — Kutlass
Dan Hennessey — Green Kroc
I remember when I was a kid, I read in my Nintendo Magazine that there was a show based on Donkey Kong Country on Fox Kids. This was back at the time when it seemed to be a rarity to have sky or even cable, so I never got a chance to see it, which really irritated me. I grew up with Donkey Kong Country, and even now I love the games, despite how much they are called average etc by most people. I let my imagination run wild about what could be on this show, with me imagining how all my favorite characters would sound and act. Many years later, when I learnt that you can find out about almost anything on the web, I searched for the show, and saw some pictures of it. It horrified me, I was expecting the series to look like the art, which was kinda stupid of me considering how primitive 3d animation was at the time, and how every single game related cartoon I’d seen was vastly different from their respective games concept art etc.
I honestly never thought I’d bother watching the show, as I’d read a bit about it and it put me off, with me reading about singing and other corny stuff. I decided however to bite the bullet and watch a few episodes, as at this point I’m running low on series that are doable without seeming like a mammoth task (like the Kirby anime, Mario Bros Super Show or Pokemon) so here we are. I’ve watched a couple of episodes so far, and my general opinion is, I would of liked this series as a kid, and I admit I do like parts of it now. The main part that I like is the characters who I liked from the games, such as Funky and Cranky. Quite a few of the characters described personalities from the games are perfectly intact here, with Funky’s laidback surfer attitude, but his keen mechanic mind, and Cranky’s cutting remarks. A couple of characters do surprise, like Diddy being a cowardly Luigi type, but others like DK are completely as I imagined they’d be.
Anyway, on to the actual episode. Well it’s pretty clear it’s the first episode. We get Cranky telling the audience about the Crystal Coconut and how K Rool wants it as whoever has it is king of the Island. It’s funny how the thing still seems to do nothing more than show pictures of people, kinda like a coconut TV. Anyway, we get K Rool actually do like a smart villain and just all out attack the cabin, and as we get to see he gets his ass kicked by DK. It’s pretty cool and does illustrate why he has to try these convoluted plans rather than outright taking the coconut.
Anyway, the basic plot is taken from the story of Sampson. DK is put under a curse by having a robot version of Candy Kong cut his hair, therefore taking all his strength away. It’s a pretty good set up as we’re shown things that he does before with ease now being impossible, such as him hitting the button for his elevator system. What really freaked me out though, is that that quiff DK has, is actually skin under his hair, as in he has two protrusions in his skull on the top of his head. It looks really gross.
One interesting thing, is that Krusha seems much more intelligent here than in later episodes. Of course that’s common in most pilots, but here it’s interesting that he ends the episode with the crap kicked out of him. I wonder if that actually caused his future stupidity, pretty violent fight if so, it’s not actually shown though so who knows.
Overall a pretty good episode. I mainly liked the fact that DK wasn’t shown to learn that he doesn’t need to rely on his strength and that the "power was iside him all along" or that "His mind could help him win regardless of power", instead he just gets it back and kicks ass, plus the ending was funny.
Friday, July 30, 2010
A History In Animation- Pit
Pit.
So Pit’s finally got a true new game after many years. And so I can’t think of a better time to do an article on Pit’s appearances in animation. The very first thing I should comment on, is that Pit was actually called Kid Icarus on the show, I’d imagine simply because the writers presumed that Pit had the game named after him like with Mario or Megaman. The name Pit never comes up in the show, so it’s not a case of him being Kid Icarus Pit like King Bowser Koopa on the Mario cartoon. Anyway, moving on, Pit was actually probably the closest on the N-team to his original portrayal. If you’ll look at the art for the first (and until the recent announcement, only) two games, you’ll notice he’s got a similar haircut (excluding the colour and Cowlick across his eye) and the clothing’s pretty similar. The main differences were that Pit in the show can fly constantly whereas in the game he can’t until he gets the Wings of Pegasus (so I presume in the cartoon he already has them). Also another major difference, is that like Green Arrow, he has many different arrows which do different things, for example, he has a Buzzsaw arrow, a Love at first sight arrow, even a Bon Voyage party arrow (which causes his foe to get a party hat, party blower and some balloons which lift them up into the sky… yeah…) All the people who come from Pit’s homeworld of Mount Icarus add “Icas” to their words, such as “We’re going home-Icas” This is actually said more often than Megaman saying “Mega” before his sentences, so I presume it’s a verbal tick whereas Megaman just says it for some reason (especially as none of the other Robot Masters seem to say it…)
One key aspect of Kid Icarus’s character in the show was that he was small and (at least implied) to be a kid. As such there was an episode, “Wishful Thinking” where he wished himself big, which led to him getting too big etc. Anyway, this could actually be similar to the actual game version since one of the best endings results in Pit growing bigger (as seen above) and the more recent versions of Pit seem more adolescent.
The main aim of the game is for Pit to retrieve the three Sacred Treasures. Each of them is guarded by a boss and once Pit has them all he faces the final boss. They appear in the episodes “Videolympics” and “Mega Trouble for Megaland”. However in the cartoon, they are simply three chests that seem to allow Motherbrain to become extremely powerful and do things like warp the N-team to the Warpzone to oblivion (no not the game…) and revive fallen troops. This greatly differs from the game, in which the three sacred treasures are the Arrow of Light, The Wings of Pegasus and The Mirror Shield. The series actually also has two of these items, in the same episode which are said to be the only force capable of defeating the three Sacred Treasures (which apparently only Pit can wield, mainly due to him being the best archer.) As mentioned previously, I assume Pit constantly had the Wings of Pegasus as he can fly indefinitely in the show.
The Mirror Sheild appears first sitting beside the other three power objects and later when it’s used against Medusa. Later on in the episode, it’s used by Simon to absorb Fire Man’s attack.
Finally we have light arrows, which as you can see appear as arrows which are magically glowing. This is actually pretty close to the original, which was blue but was also a glowing arrow. The only issue as with much of Kid Icarus in Captain N, is that they’re named Fire Arrows instead of Light Arrows. Still it’s pretty close. Also, Pit uses that sacred Bow with it, which is actually slightly similar to the sacred bow from Brawl’s version of Pit as it’s gold.
Finally, voice wise, the cartoon’s Pit is pretty different from the modern English voice. Pit sounds like a teenager with both however, but he sounds more grown up in Brawl which actually supports my idea that the Brawl version is meant to be a grown up version.
So Pit’s finally got a true new game after many years. And so I can’t think of a better time to do an article on Pit’s appearances in animation. The very first thing I should comment on, is that Pit was actually called Kid Icarus on the show, I’d imagine simply because the writers presumed that Pit had the game named after him like with Mario or Megaman. The name Pit never comes up in the show, so it’s not a case of him being Kid Icarus Pit like King Bowser Koopa on the Mario cartoon. Anyway, moving on, Pit was actually probably the closest on the N-team to his original portrayal. If you’ll look at the art for the first (and until the recent announcement, only) two games, you’ll notice he’s got a similar haircut (excluding the colour and Cowlick across his eye) and the clothing’s pretty similar. The main differences were that Pit in the show can fly constantly whereas in the game he can’t until he gets the Wings of Pegasus (so I presume in the cartoon he already has them). Also another major difference, is that like Green Arrow, he has many different arrows which do different things, for example, he has a Buzzsaw arrow, a Love at first sight arrow, even a Bon Voyage party arrow (which causes his foe to get a party hat, party blower and some balloons which lift them up into the sky… yeah…) All the people who come from Pit’s homeworld of Mount Icarus add “Icas” to their words, such as “We’re going home-Icas” This is actually said more often than Megaman saying “Mega” before his sentences, so I presume it’s a verbal tick whereas Megaman just says it for some reason (especially as none of the other Robot Masters seem to say it…)
One key aspect of Kid Icarus’s character in the show was that he was small and (at least implied) to be a kid. As such there was an episode, “Wishful Thinking” where he wished himself big, which led to him getting too big etc. Anyway, this could actually be similar to the actual game version since one of the best endings results in Pit growing bigger (as seen above) and the more recent versions of Pit seem more adolescent.
The main aim of the game is for Pit to retrieve the three Sacred Treasures. Each of them is guarded by a boss and once Pit has them all he faces the final boss. They appear in the episodes “Videolympics” and “Mega Trouble for Megaland”. However in the cartoon, they are simply three chests that seem to allow Motherbrain to become extremely powerful and do things like warp the N-team to the Warpzone to oblivion (no not the game…) and revive fallen troops. This greatly differs from the game, in which the three sacred treasures are the Arrow of Light, The Wings of Pegasus and The Mirror Shield. The series actually also has two of these items, in the same episode which are said to be the only force capable of defeating the three Sacred Treasures (which apparently only Pit can wield, mainly due to him being the best archer.) As mentioned previously, I assume Pit constantly had the Wings of Pegasus as he can fly indefinitely in the show.
The Mirror Sheild appears first sitting beside the other three power objects and later when it’s used against Medusa. Later on in the episode, it’s used by Simon to absorb Fire Man’s attack.
Finally we have light arrows, which as you can see appear as arrows which are magically glowing. This is actually pretty close to the original, which was blue but was also a glowing arrow. The only issue as with much of Kid Icarus in Captain N, is that they’re named Fire Arrows instead of Light Arrows. Still it’s pretty close. Also, Pit uses that sacred Bow with it, which is actually slightly similar to the sacred bow from Brawl’s version of Pit as it’s gold.
Finally, voice wise, the cartoon’s Pit is pretty different from the modern English voice. Pit sounds like a teenager with both however, but he sounds more grown up in Brawl which actually supports my idea that the Brawl version is meant to be a grown up version.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
The Super Mario Bros Super Show Episode 5
Title- Rolling down the River.
Ok, I actually don’t know what this episode was based on (and I doubt many kids who watched it had a clue either) but I found it far more enjoyable than the last episode. The setting was more interesting, the characters were more fun and Koopa was pretty humorous. Mark Twang was a cool character, I was going to say an unusual character to help the Mario Bros, but then again there weren’t really a set character stereotype in this show who would team up with the Mario Bros so I guess really I’d be wrong there. The mouth of the river was kinda cool, and reminded me a lot of the character in Pirates of the Caribbean 2 Tia Dalma who was also in a swamp. I dunno really why I thought of her actually…
There were actually some quite funny moments, like the ‘heroes’ being the ones who were cheating at cards. Also there was a cameo from Clawgrip, the only boss of the game SMB2 who never was a second in command to Koopa.
Overall a pretty fun episode, I’d say slightly above average for the series.
Ok, I actually don’t know what this episode was based on (and I doubt many kids who watched it had a clue either) but I found it far more enjoyable than the last episode. The setting was more interesting, the characters were more fun and Koopa was pretty humorous. Mark Twang was a cool character, I was going to say an unusual character to help the Mario Bros, but then again there weren’t really a set character stereotype in this show who would team up with the Mario Bros so I guess really I’d be wrong there. The mouth of the river was kinda cool, and reminded me a lot of the character in Pirates of the Caribbean 2 Tia Dalma who was also in a swamp. I dunno really why I thought of her actually…
There were actually some quite funny moments, like the ‘heroes’ being the ones who were cheating at cards. Also there was a cameo from Clawgrip, the only boss of the game SMB2 who never was a second in command to Koopa.
Overall a pretty fun episode, I’d say slightly above average for the series.
The Super Mario Bros Super Show Episode 4
Title- Mario’s Magic Carpet.
Another episode based around a pop culture tale, this time I think it’s Aladdin, but I’m not sure. It’s not really one of the direct adaptations, more just using a similar setting. Basically they’re searching for Aladdin’s lamp (which is pretty illogical if Aladdin already owns it, but whatever.) and they get captured by this Sultan guy who makes the princess become part of his harem. Then Koopa shows up as we can’t have an episode without him, and buys the Princess off him. Meanwhile the Mario bros find the lamp and some genie and a load of stuff happens. I dunno, I just can’t enjoy this episode, there are only a couple of moments that I find memorable about it but other than that it really is one of the shows worst, a real example of pure drudgery that this series could occasionally fall into (not too often though thank god.)
What was interesting? Well I found the idea of using a swirling quicksand pit as a execution type place kinda cool, reminded me of the sarlacc pit out of Star Wars (the giant mouth in the sand Jabba tried to force them into.) Also, the idea that Luigi speaks Pidgit was really out there. Finally, I suppose the idea of the flying carpets practically being cars was kinda funny I suppose.
Overall, a pretty dull episode, maybe hampered by the fact I don’t really enjoy stories set in deserts to begin with.
Another episode based around a pop culture tale, this time I think it’s Aladdin, but I’m not sure. It’s not really one of the direct adaptations, more just using a similar setting. Basically they’re searching for Aladdin’s lamp (which is pretty illogical if Aladdin already owns it, but whatever.) and they get captured by this Sultan guy who makes the princess become part of his harem. Then Koopa shows up as we can’t have an episode without him, and buys the Princess off him. Meanwhile the Mario bros find the lamp and some genie and a load of stuff happens. I dunno, I just can’t enjoy this episode, there are only a couple of moments that I find memorable about it but other than that it really is one of the shows worst, a real example of pure drudgery that this series could occasionally fall into (not too often though thank god.)
What was interesting? Well I found the idea of using a swirling quicksand pit as a execution type place kinda cool, reminded me of the sarlacc pit out of Star Wars (the giant mouth in the sand Jabba tried to force them into.) Also, the idea that Luigi speaks Pidgit was really out there. Finally, I suppose the idea of the flying carpets practically being cars was kinda funny I suppose.
Overall, a pretty dull episode, maybe hampered by the fact I don’t really enjoy stories set in deserts to begin with.
The Super Mario Bros Super Show Episode 3
Title- Butch Mario and the Luigi Kid.
Yet another takeoff, this time of a western movie. This one’s based on I think Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid but don’t quote me on that. This is also the first episode in which Koopa actually takes on an alter ego, as Kid Koopa (who might be a takeoff of Billy the Kid but I dunno.) We also get some creative uses of enemies from the games. Instead of guns, the characters have pocket sized Cobrats (the snakes who hid in jars and shot bullets at you from them) which they use as guns. Also, Ostros are used as horses and many other enemies appear such as Pokeys, Snifits and Tweeters.
This episode is also notable for being the first appearance of Mouser, who was a boss from the game SMB2 and appears pretty regularly as Koopa’s second in command. Even when Mouser appears in episodes with the other characters that are sometimes Koopa’s second in command, he often seems to be the one above them.
So what about the episode, well it was pretty basic fun, there were some weird moments, like when a group of Mouser’s Snifits fail to make it over a river and drown he actually starts crying over them, it’s kinda surreal really in this cartoon. Other than that, there are some pretty humorous moments, like the way the Mario Bros keep finding their wanted poster going up, but it’s not really one of the best episodes.
Overall, a pretty average episode, it’s got some funny moments.
Yet another takeoff, this time of a western movie. This one’s based on I think Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid but don’t quote me on that. This is also the first episode in which Koopa actually takes on an alter ego, as Kid Koopa (who might be a takeoff of Billy the Kid but I dunno.) We also get some creative uses of enemies from the games. Instead of guns, the characters have pocket sized Cobrats (the snakes who hid in jars and shot bullets at you from them) which they use as guns. Also, Ostros are used as horses and many other enemies appear such as Pokeys, Snifits and Tweeters.
This episode is also notable for being the first appearance of Mouser, who was a boss from the game SMB2 and appears pretty regularly as Koopa’s second in command. Even when Mouser appears in episodes with the other characters that are sometimes Koopa’s second in command, he often seems to be the one above them.
So what about the episode, well it was pretty basic fun, there were some weird moments, like when a group of Mouser’s Snifits fail to make it over a river and drown he actually starts crying over them, it’s kinda surreal really in this cartoon. Other than that, there are some pretty humorous moments, like the way the Mario Bros keep finding their wanted poster going up, but it’s not really one of the best episodes.
Overall, a pretty average episode, it’s got some funny moments.
The Super Mario Bros Super Show Episode 2
Title- King Mario of Cramalot.
So, onto the episode which started the trend of having a parody of some pop culture story. This one is based on the Legend of King Arthur. Basically, Mario and friends come to the land of Cramalot (I see what you did there). Mario is guided by Melvin the Magician to pull the golden plunger and become king of Cramalot, then Koopa steals the plunger. Koopa had marched in and taken over when the previous king died, so he stole the plunger to stop Mario’s claim to the throne.
There are some pretty funny moments, mainly to do with Luigi. One part I remember that was funny was how after Luigi’s been cowering during the battle, when everything’s over he appears with the rest of the group trying to look heroic. Also cool was that we got to see a few new enemies, the first being Beezos (shy guys with wings) and the second being Koopa Troopers and Koopa Paratroopers.
One thing I find humorous is that there was a takeoff of Merlin in Paper Mario called Merlon, and you know if you’ve read any of my other articles on here I love trying to draw parallels between the games and cartoons.
Overall, a pretty fun episode, typical of the series.
So, onto the episode which started the trend of having a parody of some pop culture story. This one is based on the Legend of King Arthur. Basically, Mario and friends come to the land of Cramalot (I see what you did there). Mario is guided by Melvin the Magician to pull the golden plunger and become king of Cramalot, then Koopa steals the plunger. Koopa had marched in and taken over when the previous king died, so he stole the plunger to stop Mario’s claim to the throne.
There are some pretty funny moments, mainly to do with Luigi. One part I remember that was funny was how after Luigi’s been cowering during the battle, when everything’s over he appears with the rest of the group trying to look heroic. Also cool was that we got to see a few new enemies, the first being Beezos (shy guys with wings) and the second being Koopa Troopers and Koopa Paratroopers.
One thing I find humorous is that there was a takeoff of Merlin in Paper Mario called Merlon, and you know if you’ve read any of my other articles on here I love trying to draw parallels between the games and cartoons.
Overall, a pretty fun episode, typical of the series.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
The Super Mario Bros Super Show
The Bird, The Bird!
King Mario of Cramalot.
Butch Mario and the Luigi Kid.
Mario’s Magic Carpet.
Rolling down the River.
A History In Animation- Pokemon Rivals
Pokemon Rivals
Since I’ve got the protagonists done now I thought I’d get the rivals done next since they are the most recurring characters in the games beyond the protagonists. The rivals are basically a character who will usually start their journey at the same time as the player and pick their pokemon team depending on what the player picks (so they’ll pick the starter that your starter is weak to.) The rival then meets up with you at various points in the game and battles you. Sometimes they team up with you too at certain points but these occurrences are very rare. Some of the rivals almost directly appear in the anime, whereas others have similarities but are not direct counterparts.
Blue Oak/Gary Oak
The most famous of the rivals and possibly one of the most definitive is Blue. He not only appears in more games than any of the other rivals, but he also was the one who achieved the most in the games than any of the others, becoming the champion of the Kanto League. Blue was infamous for appearing always ahead of the player and gloating about how much further ahead he was in comparison to the player. His name would be on the list of challengers who beat the gym leader in every gym you travelled to as well. Blue did change however as when he’s beaten by the player at the very end of the game he loses his position as champion. In the next game the player could travel to Kanto and would find that the gym that was originally owned by the Team Rocket boss Giovanni now has Blue as it’s leader. He’s still as cocky as ever though and badmouths the player until he’s beaten, then he promises he’ll beat him next time. Gary is pretty similar in comparison. Firstly he looks far more like the original game art for blue with the blue shirt and pendant or whatever around his neck. In appearances after the Johto series he starts wearing his outfit from the remake of the original games. Personality wise he’s exactly the same, being an arrogant jerk who’s always one step ahead of Ash. The anime takes this to even more of an extreme by giving him a group of cheerleaders who follow him around and a red car he drives around in (and they’re meant to be about 10 years old I believe…) In later series Gary, similar to Blue becomes less focused on becoming a Pokemon Master and less arrogant, but unlike his game counterpart he tries to follow in his grandfathers footsteps and becomes a Pokemon researcher. Gary is different from Blue in the fact that Blue must be beaten to progress through the game, therefore in the story of the game Blue never beats Red (except possibly in the very first battle which can be lost.) Gary on the other hand has beaten Ash all but once, and even after he became a researcher he managed to beat Ash. Finally in both versions Gary and Blue are Professor Oak’s Grandson.
Silver/Paul?
Silver is a real departure from the other rival characters. He is possibly the worst of them all as his first Pokemon (in Johto at least) is stolen instead of given to him and it’s implied that he abuses his pokemon. He’s constantly saying that he despises the weak and he physically attacks the player on occasion (usually just pushing them out of his way.) A rather important plotpoint (that is also a spoiler so please don’t read this if you’re planning to play through the new G&S remakes.) is that he is Giovanni’s son. This is only implied in the original games but is shown in the secret Celebi event in the remakes.
When looking at Silver’s anime counterpart(s?) we have a problem. The reason for this is that in the anime special, ‘Legend of Thunder’ with Gold’s opening we see a character who is meant to be Silver in the anime (the redhead with the rhino above.) There is however another character who in my opinion is actually the anime counterpart of Silver. Paul is the main rival of Ash in the most recent series. Paul is very similar to silver, firstly whilst his hair’s not red, it’s a similar style to silver’s. Secondly is his personality. Paul despises weak Pokemon and throws away the ones he deems weak. He pushes them to the extremes and calls them (as well as most other people) pathetic when they fail him. This is best shown in him making his Chimchar basically get beaten up by his other pokemon just so he can use his special ability (which only happens when Chimchar is under extreme stress.) Paul has some backstory but as of yet nothing indicates that he is related to Giovanni at all and he didn’t make any comment on Team Rocket when they attack (then again he barely took any notice of the Trio and as such might of not believed that they were part of Team Rocket.) I believe that Paul is the same character from the opening to the special episode, the reason why is because it’s revealed that Paul has been through Johto, Kanto and Hoenn, meaning that they could be the same character. Paul also enters competitions without the real ambition to win, often simply using them as a way of testing out which of his Pokemon is deserving of being on his team. At the end of the day, the guy’s an asshole, even more so than Gary or any of the other rivals.
Wally/Drew
Sadly I am not actually all that up on Ruby and Sapphire so I don’t actually know much about this character. He’s pretty unique compared to most rivals as he doesn’t actually become a rival until part way into the game and is a sickly kid (with what some believe to be asthma). Drew on the other hand is always going around with a rose and is very confident and critical, as well as popular. He’s also a co-ordinator which means he’s not a trainer who battles for badges but in contests instead. The only reason I think Drew is at least an adaptation of Wally is because his hair’s green and he’s May’s rival in the anime.
Barry
Barry is pretty much the only rival other than Gary who’s pretty much his game counterpart in the anime. In the games, Barry is always rushing around and hyper, saying he’ll fine people if they don’t meet him or do something quickly enough. Barry is probably the least jerkish of the rivals (other than Wally but he’s sort of a semi-rival.) and is just overly self assured and cocky. He rarely badmouths the player. In the anime Barry’s pretty much the same rushing around everywhere and being overly cocky. One strange difference is that in the anime Barry is in awe of Paul and believes he’s the perfect trainer. Barry isn’t like Paul however as he doesn’t mistreat his Pokemon, but he does release ones he thinks are weak. Barry’s father is Palmer who’s part of the Sinnoh battle frontier.
Since I’ve got the protagonists done now I thought I’d get the rivals done next since they are the most recurring characters in the games beyond the protagonists. The rivals are basically a character who will usually start their journey at the same time as the player and pick their pokemon team depending on what the player picks (so they’ll pick the starter that your starter is weak to.) The rival then meets up with you at various points in the game and battles you. Sometimes they team up with you too at certain points but these occurrences are very rare. Some of the rivals almost directly appear in the anime, whereas others have similarities but are not direct counterparts.
Blue Oak/Gary Oak
The most famous of the rivals and possibly one of the most definitive is Blue. He not only appears in more games than any of the other rivals, but he also was the one who achieved the most in the games than any of the others, becoming the champion of the Kanto League. Blue was infamous for appearing always ahead of the player and gloating about how much further ahead he was in comparison to the player. His name would be on the list of challengers who beat the gym leader in every gym you travelled to as well. Blue did change however as when he’s beaten by the player at the very end of the game he loses his position as champion. In the next game the player could travel to Kanto and would find that the gym that was originally owned by the Team Rocket boss Giovanni now has Blue as it’s leader. He’s still as cocky as ever though and badmouths the player until he’s beaten, then he promises he’ll beat him next time. Gary is pretty similar in comparison. Firstly he looks far more like the original game art for blue with the blue shirt and pendant or whatever around his neck. In appearances after the Johto series he starts wearing his outfit from the remake of the original games. Personality wise he’s exactly the same, being an arrogant jerk who’s always one step ahead of Ash. The anime takes this to even more of an extreme by giving him a group of cheerleaders who follow him around and a red car he drives around in (and they’re meant to be about 10 years old I believe…) In later series Gary, similar to Blue becomes less focused on becoming a Pokemon Master and less arrogant, but unlike his game counterpart he tries to follow in his grandfathers footsteps and becomes a Pokemon researcher. Gary is different from Blue in the fact that Blue must be beaten to progress through the game, therefore in the story of the game Blue never beats Red (except possibly in the very first battle which can be lost.) Gary on the other hand has beaten Ash all but once, and even after he became a researcher he managed to beat Ash. Finally in both versions Gary and Blue are Professor Oak’s Grandson.
Silver/Paul?
Silver is a real departure from the other rival characters. He is possibly the worst of them all as his first Pokemon (in Johto at least) is stolen instead of given to him and it’s implied that he abuses his pokemon. He’s constantly saying that he despises the weak and he physically attacks the player on occasion (usually just pushing them out of his way.) A rather important plotpoint (that is also a spoiler so please don’t read this if you’re planning to play through the new G&S remakes.) is that he is Giovanni’s son. This is only implied in the original games but is shown in the secret Celebi event in the remakes.
When looking at Silver’s anime counterpart(s?) we have a problem. The reason for this is that in the anime special, ‘Legend of Thunder’ with Gold’s opening we see a character who is meant to be Silver in the anime (the redhead with the rhino above.) There is however another character who in my opinion is actually the anime counterpart of Silver. Paul is the main rival of Ash in the most recent series. Paul is very similar to silver, firstly whilst his hair’s not red, it’s a similar style to silver’s. Secondly is his personality. Paul despises weak Pokemon and throws away the ones he deems weak. He pushes them to the extremes and calls them (as well as most other people) pathetic when they fail him. This is best shown in him making his Chimchar basically get beaten up by his other pokemon just so he can use his special ability (which only happens when Chimchar is under extreme stress.) Paul has some backstory but as of yet nothing indicates that he is related to Giovanni at all and he didn’t make any comment on Team Rocket when they attack (then again he barely took any notice of the Trio and as such might of not believed that they were part of Team Rocket.) I believe that Paul is the same character from the opening to the special episode, the reason why is because it’s revealed that Paul has been through Johto, Kanto and Hoenn, meaning that they could be the same character. Paul also enters competitions without the real ambition to win, often simply using them as a way of testing out which of his Pokemon is deserving of being on his team. At the end of the day, the guy’s an asshole, even more so than Gary or any of the other rivals.
Wally/Drew
Sadly I am not actually all that up on Ruby and Sapphire so I don’t actually know much about this character. He’s pretty unique compared to most rivals as he doesn’t actually become a rival until part way into the game and is a sickly kid (with what some believe to be asthma). Drew on the other hand is always going around with a rose and is very confident and critical, as well as popular. He’s also a co-ordinator which means he’s not a trainer who battles for badges but in contests instead. The only reason I think Drew is at least an adaptation of Wally is because his hair’s green and he’s May’s rival in the anime.
Barry
Barry is pretty much the only rival other than Gary who’s pretty much his game counterpart in the anime. In the games, Barry is always rushing around and hyper, saying he’ll fine people if they don’t meet him or do something quickly enough. Barry is probably the least jerkish of the rivals (other than Wally but he’s sort of a semi-rival.) and is just overly self assured and cocky. He rarely badmouths the player. In the anime Barry’s pretty much the same rushing around everywhere and being overly cocky. One strange difference is that in the anime Barry is in awe of Paul and believes he’s the perfect trainer. Barry isn’t like Paul however as he doesn’t mistreat his Pokemon, but he does release ones he thinks are weak. Barry’s father is Palmer who’s part of the Sinnoh battle frontier.
A History in Animation- Various Mario Power-ups
Power-ups
Since I’ve already done an article on the Fire Flower, which is amongst the oldest and the power-up with the most changes, it won’t be included in this article which tackles the majority of other power-ups.
First of all is the only power-up other than the Fire Flower and the Super Mushroom that debuted in Super Mario Bros, the Starman. In the games the Starman allowed Mario temporary invincibility, which meant he could run into enemies unharmed, but also it allowed him to kill enemies by simply touching them. In the Super Mario Bros Super Show, the Starman would often turn Mario, Luigi or the princess into Super (Name) which gave them super strength, fire powers and even on one occasion the ability to fly. They were not completely invincible however and also unlike the games, they could keep the ability for a long time. When the Starman appeared in AOSMB3 and SMW it was exactly like the game version. Mario or Luigi would flash different colours whilst gaining invincibility (which usually consisted of the super strength to throw enemies like Koopa, Sledge Bros and even some Wrigglers into space). Appearance wise the Starman followed the original version perfectly, as did invincible Mario.
Next up we have what is many people’s favourite power-up, the Racoon Leaf, or as it’s called in the show, the Super Leaf. This power-up has only appeared in SMB3 (and remakes) and so it only appeared on TAOSMB3 too. It was probably the most common power-up on the show apart from the Frog suit, it also played a slight role as the mascot since Racoon Mario appears on the title screen for each episode and the DVD case. It was a perfect adaptation of the game version except they seemed to be able to fly indefinitely, whereas in the game it was only available after running and for a short time. 
Since I’ve already done an article on the Fire Flower, which is amongst the oldest and the power-up with the most changes, it won’t be included in this article which tackles the majority of other power-ups.
First of all is the only power-up other than the Fire Flower and the Super Mushroom that debuted in Super Mario Bros, the Starman. In the games the Starman allowed Mario temporary invincibility, which meant he could run into enemies unharmed, but also it allowed him to kill enemies by simply touching them. In the Super Mario Bros Super Show, the Starman would often turn Mario, Luigi or the princess into Super (Name) which gave them super strength, fire powers and even on one occasion the ability to fly. They were not completely invincible however and also unlike the games, they could keep the ability for a long time. When the Starman appeared in AOSMB3 and SMW it was exactly like the game version. Mario or Luigi would flash different colours whilst gaining invincibility (which usually consisted of the super strength to throw enemies like Koopa, Sledge Bros and even some Wrigglers into space). Appearance wise the Starman followed the original version perfectly, as did invincible Mario.
Next up we have what is many people’s favourite power-up, the Racoon Leaf, or as it’s called in the show, the Super Leaf. This power-up has only appeared in SMB3 (and remakes) and so it only appeared on TAOSMB3 too. It was probably the most common power-up on the show apart from the Frog suit, it also played a slight role as the mascot since Racoon Mario appears on the title screen for each episode and the DVD case. It was a perfect adaptation of the game version except they seemed to be able to fly indefinitely, whereas in the game it was only available after running and for a short time.
Next up and related to the Racoon suit is the P-wing. In the game this was the racoon suit, but with ability to fly constantly as opposed to having to gain speed. In the cartoon this wasn’t a factor with the Racoon Suit so there’s no real difference other than the P that appears on them. The P would appear on their chest in-game too, but only on the map screen.
Finally for SMB3, is the Frog Suit. Basically the suit is exactly the same as you can see above it’s a suit that allows Mario, Luigi or whoever else to swim far better. They even humorously talk about it as if it was a raincoat telling people to wear their Frog Suit out as it’s raining. You might be wondering why There’s a pic of a Blue Toad above? Well it’s because this is the closest the games have come yet to a Toad version of the Frog Suit. I can’t compare anything as they’re too different but I thought I’d put it here anyway.
Next up, a SMW exclusive, Cape Mario. Cape Mario in the show is practically the same as the game, in fact even more than the Racoon Suit as sometimes he does the open parachute move that you see above rather than hover on the spot. He also does the cape spin to attack enemies. Not much more to say, it’s probably the most true to the games power-up on here.
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