Shadow and Bone

This two season young adult fantasy show follows assistant cartographer Alina Starkov (played by Jessie Mei Li) as she joins an expedition through the Fold - a dangerous, dark place with demons - only to discover that she's "the chosen one" in this setting. Life for her changes quickly as her status is elevated immediately, being prized by friends and foes alike.

The B plot usually focuses on one such outfit, a small criminal gang, hired to kidnap her and strangely enough their stories are usually more compelling than her own. Very good world building here and there's usually a decent amount of action per episode. I would have liked a season three but it does wrap up well enough for its two season tenure.

Hell's Paradise: Jigokuraku (S1) and Mashle: Magic and Muscles (S1)

Two first season anime reviews that both deal with "magic and muscles".

Hell's Paradise: Jigokuraku (Season 1)

During the Edo period in Japan, a bunch of captured dangerous death-row convicts AND their equally lethal minders are sent to a mysterious island believed to be the location of the elixir of life. Whichever convict returns with it will be pardoned. This immediately sets up a battle royale type scene but its just made all the worse when the island is full of horrible monsters too (why else are they sending expendable criminals right)?

Decent art with well animated and gory fight scenes make this worth watching despite the "down time" episodes that are mostly talking. Also given the large cast it takes sometime to care about some of the characters but that fixes itself nicely once people start dying off. Fair warning though, until the announced second season comes out this won't have a satisfying ending. Still a thumbs up from me!

Mashle: Magic and Muscles (Season 1)

In a world ruled by magic users, those born without the talent for it are simply executed to keep the blood line strong. Enter Mash, who is one such "abomination" with zero magical ability (and possibly a lower IQ). What he does have however, is super athleticism and when he is forced to attend "magic school" he must come up with ways to physically achieve what the others just wave wands for.

This lighthearted comedy clearly makes fun of Harry Potteresque ideas, and it's pretty cool to see arrogant wizards put in their place through pure brute force. The jokes are a bit hit and miss though, and you'll need to power through episode one to get any traction. The art is also a step down from what I usually watch but again, its fine for what it is. Another one I'll definitely be watching the second season of. :)

Locke & Key (3 Seasons)

A grieving family moves into an old house where they begin to discover magical keys that do all sorts of cool and dangerous things, often needing them to solve problems that they created in the first place! While I laugh at where some of the keys were "hidden", the story starts off quite well and most of the characters are likeable enough.  

Alas it slowly degrades as things happen that just aren't explained or worse, characters become stupider - because the writer's couldn't handle what I call "the Flash syndrome". They get all these powers that are super handy and... forget to use them? Also, in Season 3 they are still blindly testing new keys with no contingencies which is really moronic.

Still an entertaining series though, and one with an ok ending despite the convoluted path it took to get there. If you like the "dark fairy tale" vibe (but not too dark because the creators still tried to be kid friendly) then definitely check this one out.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

When a dimension hopper is targeted by monstrous demon-aliens(?) it falls to Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and sorceress Wanda Maximoff (Elisabeth Olsen) to sort it out. Unfortunately this all boils down to a bunch of "oh so powerful they can't be real" spell books, a somewhat predictable plot, and a run time that is far too long for its own good.

It's magic time?

As usual the visuals are nice and the hook of being able to dimension hop introduces some cool people to fight but this is muted by some silliness like throwing in the random monsters at the end and a little too much "magic can do everything, oh except dimension hop - but it can also do that, sort of". What?

It almost feels like the creators separately thought up of cool scenes and then went: lets keep all of them and just try mash them all together! Anyway, this definitely makes it one of the weaker Marvel movies. Wandavision was better.

Encanto & Raya and the Last Dragon

Two CGI Disney movies with female protagonists.

Encanto

Set in a magical place near Colombia, Mirabel is part of a family gifted with miraculous powers by a candle... except she doesn't get any. Soon enough the candles power begins to dwindle and it is up to the unlikely heroine to try save the day and make things worse. Lots of latin type songs in this one, so stay away if singing is not for you. Otherwise, it's a pretty nice movie and one I'd recommend.

Nice quality art and animation as to be expected.

Raya and the Last Dragon

Set on a huge continent that somehow looks like a dragon, Raya's misplaced trust sees a horrible evil let loose once more so she takes it upon herself to seek out the last dragon whose race perished stopping said evil the last time. No singing this time around as it instead uses cool martial arts action sequences and very funny, if improbable, characters. But hey, isn't Disney full of those? Also recommended!

Not sure which of these win for me, because I enjoyed them both! :)

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

Now I want a big cat.

When the dangerous revolutionary Grindelwald (now Johnny Depp) escapes from prison, it falls to the timid Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) to recapture him, much like he does with his other magical pokemon. This second installment of Fantastic Beasts fixes many of the issues I had with the last one.

First, there are less hijinks with the creatures which is a plus as there were some really silly moments in the last movie. This leads to more appreciation to the bits that do focus on the creatures and more importantly gives people (namely Newt) more character development time (finally)!

That's a strange looking cat! I want one!

The villain is more compelling this time around and having segments at Hogwarts is a great addition to the plot. As usual, the music and effects are great which overall makes for a superior movie to its predecessor. I give it 3.5 Dumbledores out of of 5 and would watch it again.

Now You See Me 2

Even more unbelievable than last time.

The dormant group of magician vigilantes from the last movie re-emerge with seemingly infinite resources, even more bogus magic powers, and have somehow retained their world wide fan base. The tables are turned when the bad guys have tricks of their own.

While it has decent acting, effects and comedy the plot feels quite lacking and required "filler"? One particular example is a complicated card passing sequence that could have been 90% shorter.

Cool, but not necessary.

Entertaining: yes. Better than original: no. I'm not sure who to recommend this to other than magic fans (I guess?) and it's not one I'd watch again. 2 throwing cards out of 5.

Doctor Strange

Magicians sure are weird, but that doesn't necessarily make them interesting.

Dr. Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is an arrogant surgeon who gets his craft taken away from him due to an accident. Intent on regaining his lost skill he goes looking for a cure which leads him to a place of martial art magicians who, predictably, are suffering a crisis of their own.

This movie has crazy fantastic visuals, almost to the point of "whoa that's too much" since the mirror realms are a bit like Inception x 10 (careful all of you that suffer from motion sickness). That's perhaps the biggest strength this film has going for it, as all other areas for me seem weaker than the usual Marvel fare. The main actors are ok but some supporting roles are a bit off, with comedy bits seeming more forced.

Unintentionally using movie magic to create vertigo.

The plot suffers from some pacing issues as well with some slow bits that could have been removed, and some holes that are just not explained or simply ignored. Suspension of disbelief is quite challenging in more than a few segments (common when trying to explain mass oddities in the real world) and even the music seems weaker than the other superhero stuff I've seen... cartoon stuff included.

Still, I do quite like how he deals with the big bad - so bonus points for that. All up, I found Doctor Strange to be an entertaining action flick, but not one I'd want to watch again. I give it three library books out of five.

Skyrim: No Ascension

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

After slaying a large, magic spamming charrus who was literally in a pitch black chamber (lol fun), I then encountered an enemy who was my equal: the soul of Samel. Yep, him again! Basically a small puff of smoke in a very dark room, he was very hard to see. He also moved FASTER than I could, easily outrunning me in my speed armor. On top of that he was a HP sponge, with no "weak spot". Oh also, he cast rapid, explosive orbital bombardments that chased after me wherever I went.

Holy sh*t!

Took a lot of dexterity and a lot of slow time shouts to finally destroy his soul. Past him though was the main boss of the place: the vessel of the ascendant that looked pretty much like an angry, living Stargate that had some interesting abilities up close.

Cannot tell you how many potions were needed to survive this.

It looks so angry, for a machine.

I worked out its weakness straight away though: it was big. Too big to fit through the door to its chamber, which made sniping it with explosive arrows the way to go, even if it did take over 200 shots. It took awhile, but in the end...

It went boom!

And that's what it looked like underneath the machinery.

I suppose it was some sort of beholder... or mutated mud crab.

With it dead, I had finally cleared all traces of "the ascended" in Skyrim and was glad to be back out in the cold, crisp air. As I headed back to Whiterun I was a little sad that there was so little monetary reward in my accomplishment.

On the flip side, I could now summon most of all the creatures I had defeated up to this point, including the special dragons, to serve me. Theoretically anyway, since the mana requirements to conjure them were absurd.

Skyrim: Battle of Experimentation

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

Our return to civilization was short lived as another dragon sighting led us to the Southern mountains this time, where we faced a reverend dragon (easy normal type) and Auszeimrahgol, the f-ing cheating dragon of bastardly-ness. Much like Ziisizaan, he had an invulnerability shield too - only his was on 100% of the time. What the what? Also his melee and breath attacks were tremendously strong. I couldn't blame Zuna for running to a corner and wetting herself from fear.

Oh and exploding arrows did NOTHING.

It became a battle of experimentation. Arrows (exploding and not) didn't do damage. Magic didn't do damage. Swords were dangerous. How the heck do I hurt this thing? But something in my attacks did hurt it as his health bar was down a tiny sliver. But how? Can you guess what it was? If you said "a weak spot" then good work! You are a true dragon hunter!

He's vulnerable now! Sort of... :P

Where is this weakspot you ask? In his fricking mouth. Yep. Not the jaw, or the nose, or the chin, or the teeth. INSIDE. So to hurt it I needed to shoot into its open maw, which is only open when it is dealing insane damage to something. Right. Tried that for a bit but it didn't take, so instead I had to shout it down (because it prefers being airborne and constantly moving) and ... face tanked it.

Yep. I walked into its deadly fire, drank around 50 full health potions and hacked the inside of his face (while it was still breathing at me, so no time for screenies again sorry) until he died. Zuna couldn't believe it. Neither could I, but it was dead and we weren't. I call that a win.

Skyrim: The Flash

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

Magic training is BORING, but I persevered - content in the fact that the assassin's must be going mad looking for me. After a few days they did start investigating the ruins though. A smaller group than usual. Sanguine looked to me and smiled. I was ready. Instead of taking them head on, I let them go past and exploded the area.

It didn't kill any of them but it sure caught them off guard. Quickly vanishing, I left Drania and Sanguine to handle them while I looked for their leader. I found him outside, a black - fleeting shadow.

Not quite!

Brutus, "the Father" was definitely a speedster but unfortunately for him, dragon shouts trump speed force in this game and with a slow time yell it looked like he was moving in slow motion making it easy to end him and loot his amazing armor. Why is it amazing? Because in in a dark area or night time, you move faster than if you were on a horse! And that's just jogging. When you sprint... WHOA!

The one glowing blue eye (gained by joining Dawnguard I think) makes it even cooler.

With my new found super speed I raced back into Morvunskar and cleaned up shop, happy to see Drania was ok. And Njada. She's still safely bound in her cell. Sanguine has god mode on so I knew he'd be fine. :P

Arkania: Curian

[Part of the Darklands of Arkania Story.]

On the road to the Northwestern shore the party comes across Yasma Thinmasdotter (they like long names in this land) in one of the small town of Thoss. While she is happy to help the team with their quest, her treasure map piece had apparently been stolen by some wizard who lives in some mountainous ruins to the East. Unwilling to pursue that piece at the moment, the team makes a small detour to Vidsand since it's pretty close and they had another lead there: a lady named Ragna Firunjasdotter. She did have a piece, and was kind enough to simply hand it over.

A few uneventful days later the party found themselves at Overthorn where they finally found passage to Manrin, which is on the same island as Brendhil. Since the ship wasn't ready till morning they decided to kill some time at a local tavern. By pure chance, it is here they met the mage - Curian.

Being one member down, they accept!

While the boat ride to Manrin makes Shintar and Zubon quite sea sick, the land journey that follows to the fishing village of Thoss involves a small encounter with forest lions wherin Curian gets to show off his powerful level 9 magics. I should point out that the rest of the team is around level 2/3. While it seems he is quite overpowered with his spells the reverse is also true when he runs out of mana. :P

At Brendhil they find Tiomar Swaffildsson and thanks to Umbrik's letter, Tiomar not only gives them another map piece - he also shares more than a keg of ale with the party. Eventually Vayshen manages to pull the rest of the team out of their drunken stupor and back on the task at hand.

It's coming together.

UO Class: Wizardry

Tips for magic wielding psychopaths. Face it, if you're zapping, burning and exploding living creatures all with the power of your mind - there's something wrong with you. ;p To see the other available classes please visit the binding post!


Hard Cover:
If you are playing a true mage (robes, not armor) then archers are going to be your bane, at least until you can just blow them away in 1 shot. Always fight them in areas where you have hard cover to hide behind to heal up and time your spells. Remember they have to stop, aim and fire. You should be able to blast them and return to cover taking minimal return fire.

By the power vested in me:
Do not underestimate the power of the bless spells. Before combat or entering hostile territory it doesn't hurt to cast it on yourself and your allies. It will let both them and you take a bit more damage, giving you that last sliver of HP to heal or escape. Remember, 1 HP is all you need to live - so the more you have, the better it is. On some shards Polymorph has a similar (stackable with bless) effect on yourself for additional temporary points.

Take some time to Reflect:
Magic reflect that is. It will instantly protect you from one spell and deprive your enemy of the resources it took to cast it so try to always have it on. Think of it as your "reload" against mages when you duck behind hard cover too. It can lower your physical protection a little but if you are a true mage you probably shouldn't let anything get that close to you to begin with. It will make you more susceptible to arrows though. Enemy spellcasters may have this same spell active so be sure to fire something small to turn it "off" first.

Walled Advance:
A tactic my brothers developed to approach a large mass of enemy ranged units. Basically put up a wall of stone or 2. Advance to the wall of stone to scout. If you want to push forward some more, throw another wall or 2. Hostiles will not aggro you through the wall, they need line of sight, making it easier to scout. Furthermore when they do engage you already have some cover which will funnel them into managable numbers. If you suspect the wall is about to fall, or it actually does (bad if you're still there), withdraw and

The Gate Escape:
Especially useful for dangerous treasure chest spawns, simply mark the spot next to the chest then wander away preferably behind a few walls of stone. Open a gate and step through, right beside the box which you then "open" - triggering the spawn. Step back through the gate and now you can handle them at your own pace rather than being stuck in the thick of it.

Send them back to hell:
Dispel is another often overlooked talent. Sure it can shut gates, knock over walls and make holes in energy/poison fields but it can also insta-kill many summoned creatures that the higher level npc spellcasters tend to dish out. More so if you are in a team - the main enemy is the npc summoning all the stuff but even its death doesn't always equate that all his summons just go *poof* like in Skyrim. Rather than whittle down the summoned demon's HP or endure more chain lightning from the summoned air ele just send them back into nothingness. On all the shards I've travelled, summoned things never leave loot anyway - just headaches.

Or you know, you could do this...