ROBOT SPIRITS LADY AVENGER, BRACER PHOENIX & TITAN REDEEMER | FIGURE REVIEW

This review has been edited from its original version. It has been reformatted for culturally sensitive reasons.

It's been about 2 years since the last NECA Pacific Rim figures came out and afterward, the future of articulated figures based on the possible sequel was uncertain.

And then...this happened:

I almost foamed at the mouth seeing that tweet.
Given the quality of work that Tamashii Nations puts into it's figures, I was very excited to see what they would bring to the Pacific Rim table.
One San Diego Comic Con later, it was revealed that we would be getting 6 new Jaeger figures from it's Robot Spirits branch, better known for making articulated Gundam figures and they all looked great. But do they hold up to all that hype? Let's find out by looking at the first 3 Jaegers that have been released.

To start things off, we have Lady Avenger. The Mark V successor to the original Lady Danger, who was my favorite Jaeger from the last movie and Lady Avenger may be my favorite Jaeger from this movie, I'm having a hard time deciding between her and another Jaeger, but I'll talk about it when that figure gets released.

Lady Avenger has a fantastic look to her. It echoes the look of the original GD, but gives it a more streamlined, modern look. It even adds wings to the back, possibly as a tribute to the fallen Jaeger, Striker Eureka.
(Note: The wings come separated from the figure in the box and must be attached to the back)
Having not seen Uprising yet, I don't know how well the figure matches up to the film version, but I think this figure mimics that fantastic look to a T.

Avenger has it's signature bold blue color scheme, complimented with some patches of silver and red lines scattered throughout which looks fantastic. Looking closer, you can see a lot of other small details, including panel lines and insignia's. The one that impresses me the most is on the shoulder pads. You can see the PPDC logo as well as the words "Pan Pacific Defense Corps". For such a small detail, it looks really good and I'm surprised they were able to make it look as good as it does.
Looking at the back, there's much of the same good detail. One thing that stands out to me though, is that the inner workings on the back of the hips are painted blue. Shouldn't they be painted grey?
The visor and the double reactors on the chest are made of translucent plastic and can appear to glow when placed against a light. It makes me wonder if they'll ever release an actual light-up version.

The next Jaeger I'm looking at is Bracer Phoenix. Probably the bulkiest of the new Jaegers, but more than ready for battle.
She looks like a military assault vehicle with arms and legs, with a light tan body, highlighted with silver/gun metal joints, a gold visor and...brown eyebrows? Okay, that's kinda weird.

There are also some decals on Bracer, but not all of them are that discernible as they were on Lady Avenger. I can read the numbers alright but the words all look muddled. 

There's also a lot of interesting stuff about this Jaeger, you can see what look like cannons on the left arm. And a spiked gauntlet on the hand, could those cannons actually be boosters for a punching attack? I'll find out when I see the movie.
There also appear to be ammo packs on the left thigh.

The last Jaeger of this first wave of Robot Spirits figures is Titan Redeemer.
Titan Redeemer certainly looks like a very sturdy Jaeger, her color reminds me of a big tree, but more resembles a tank, with it's dark emerald body with gun metal patches/inner workings and some hints of yellow.
Titan's legs look very intricately detailed. On the front and the back, there's a lot going on with this Jaeger and it looks really impressive.

But let's get to the elephant in the room, or rather the wrecking ball.
Actually, it's known as a "Seismic Morning Star", a mace weapon with rows of spikes that spin individually. This weapon looks like it could cause a lot of damage and I can't wait to see it utilized in the film. 

But what about the one area we all know Tamashii Nations products can nail just as well? The Articulation.
When it comes to these Jaeger figures, The movement on all 3 of these Jaegers are very fluid and easy to move. Sometimes the articulation outshines the NECA figures and sometimes they feature the same limitations.

Their heads can look down, left and right and can tilt side to side. Tilting Bracer's head is kinda hard given the massive collar.

Lady's arms can move out pretty far, even though that movement is limited because of the shoulder pads. But those pads can move up allowing the arms to rotate all the way around.

 Surprisingly, Bracer's massive shoulder pads don't hinder much of the arm movement. The arms can make a nice "T" pose and make a full 360 rotation around the torso. 

Titan's shoulders however are pretty much stiff, making torso rotation impossible. But they can move out thanks to a small flap on the side.

The arms can also rotate below the shoulder.
The arms have double jointed elbows with no rotation.
The hands rotate and wobble around like you'd expect.

Their bodies can bend backwards and tilt side to side. But this presented an issue with Bracer.
Her waist is connected via a ball joint and normally when the joints are separated, it's just a matter of pushing it back in. Sounds simple right? Well for some reason, it took me 30 MINUTES to get my figure back together. So be wary of that.

The legs can be a bit funny in terms of articulation. The inner waist joints aren't glued into the figure itself and that can make Lady look really awkward.
The legs can move forward and backward and there is rotation at the hips.
The Knees are also double jointed and the feet can move up, turn and pivot nicely.
Below Bracer's knees, the lower leg has this extra bend similar to Crimson Typhoon's legs, although Bracer's are considerably smaller.

The Jaegers come with a fair amount of accessories

There's the usual pair of open hands. The hole is positioned in an odd way that you don't normally see on many action figures. Titan Redeemer obviously only has one open hand.

At least you can make Lady do that famous pose.

Unlike the NECA figures which had Lady's Chain Sword piece attach to the wrist, the Robot Spirits figure comes with the Chain Sword attached to the arm on a separate piece. That doesn't make it feel any less fragile though.

Lastly, there is what looks like a Plasma Cannon, but it's actually referred to as a Gravity Sling. They look to serve both functions and the piece itself does look great.

Bracer Phoenix comes with a pair of Vortex Cannon pieces. 

Both attach to Bracer's chest and back, the pictured pieces have to be removed to be replaced by the cannons. They can be a bit tricky to wiggle out, especially the back one, so it might be a good idea to take it slow.

Once removed, the cannons fit on nicely and make Bracer even more war ready then usual.

Titan Redeemer has one of the more interesting accessories. A mini 1 1/2 inch figure based on the smaller, single pilot Jaeger: Scrapper

Scrapper isn't as highly detailed as it's -- inch counterparts, but it still looks very nice. It is a little disappointing that it's just painted silver and there wasn't more color to it. And there is no articulation. It makes me wonder if a larger, more detailed Scrapper figure will be released in the future.

The Robot Spirit Jaegers stand a little over 6 1/2 inches, nearly 1 inch shorter than the NECA Jaeger figures.
I personally think they fit well in scale with the NECA Kaiju figures and even standard 6 inch Godzilla figures.

I think all 3 of these figures are fantastic! All have great articulation, wonderful detailing and I cannot wait get ahold of the next figures from Tamashii Nations and to see all of them in action on the big screen.
Lady Avenger retails for about $19.99, while Bracer Phoenix and Titan Redeemer retail for $29.99 each. For those price points, I'd say these Jaeger figures are more than worth adding to the shelves of any Kaiju collector.
I highly recommend them.

Till next time, I have been your host Gryphon

and I hope you've enjoyed your time here in my lair.

So long...

If you would like to see more from The Gryphon's Lair, Be sure to give my Facebook page a 'LIKE' to see updates and other related stuff. Thanks for reading!

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PACIFIC RIM | Movie Review

This review has been edited from its original version. It has been reformatted for culturally sensitive reasons.

In 2012, I had been checking the internet everyday for news on the Legendary Pictures Godzilla film, only to be disappointed that it in fact would not come out in 2012 as rumors had suggested.
As the year drew to a close, it looked like another year would go by until I could see giant monsters on the big screen. And then the trailer for this film came out and it made me as happy as a schoolboy to know that the wait wouldn't be so bad after all.

Pacific Rim was set to hit theaters on July 12, 2013. But I actually got to see it 10 days before that!
Apparently a member of a Godzilla Facebook group managed to get a few passes to an advance screening at a theater in Dallas, had no use for them and was offering them to anyone in the group who happened to live in that area. Me, who just so happened to live less than an hour from Dallas leaped at the chance to obtain them. As soon as I got them, I invited a few of my friends, but only one was able to attend and she was just as excited as I was to see the movie.

At the time, I don't think I had ever wanted to see a movie again immediately after my first viewing more than this one.
I am not exaggerating when I say that I. FREAKING. ADORE. PACIFIC RIM!

How do I love it? Let me count the ways.

THE STORY
Gigantic alien creatures called "Kaiju" emerge from another dimension from a portal beneath the Pacific Ocean and begin to destroy the major cities of the world. Mankind retaliates by building enormous war machines called "Jaegers."

It kinda sounds like someone got that idea by watching a kid playing with their toys. (And if you read the 'Tales From Year Zero' tie-in comic, that's exactly the case!)
But it still sounds like an epic idea.
Normally, giant robots would be operated via a series of control panels. But the Jaegers have the distinction of having 2 pilots melding their minds. Allowing them to work together to control the actions of the colossal sized Mech.

The story was conceived by Screenwriter Travis Beacham. As the story goes, he was walking along the Santa Monica Beach on a foggy day and happened to look over to the famous pier where he imagined a giant robot fighting a giant monster. An idea formed in his head, an idea he would spend the next couple of years figuring out.
This story actually shares parallels with how the idea for the original Godzilla film came into being. But that's a review for another time.

Del Toro and Beacham 

But it would take a director with a larger than life imagination to bring his idea to life and there was no better choice than the acclaimed Guillermo Del Toro.
The Mexico born filmmaker grew up watching Tokusatsu series, Anime and Kaiju films, so that already makes him an ideal choice. He's also a very visual storyteller, even the smallest details sprinkled throughout the film tell a big story.
If you love this movie like I do, I highly recommend watching it along with his Audio Commentary. Then you'll get to hear how he structured the story not like a typical war, action or even another monster movie, but another film genre I bet you never even made a connection to.

When I heard that Gareth Edwards was no longer directing "Godzilla: King of the Monsters", Del Toro was my choice to take over for the job. Obviously, that's not happening. Regardless, I still have no doubts that Michael Dougherty will knock it out of the park.

THE CHARACTERS
There's an unfortunate stigma put upon monster movies, where only the monsters matter and the human characters don't mean anything. A monster movie needs a good human cast to drive the story and make it entertaining when the monsters aren't on screen, and Pacific Rim has a great bunch of characters.
I enjoy seeing pretty much everyone of them and how work off one another.

I do think a lot of unnecessary hate is hurled at Charlie Hunnam's character. Many say his performance is stilted and emotionless. I think many people missed what he was going for. Hunnam described the character of Raleigh Becket saying: "He's lost so much, and I think it makes him a little bit cold on the outside. He's one of the most ethically righteous and disciplined, dedicated, loyal, honest guys you could ever meet..." Whenever I watch Raleigh, I definitely get that impression. It's made even better when you see him work off Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi). Both characters have experienced loss and tragedy in their lives and only together do they learn to overcome their fears and ultimately, save the world from destruction.

THE JAEGERS/KAIJU

Not surprisingly, the best parts of the movie are the battles between the Jaegers and the Kaiju. All of which are uniquely designed and pretty much flawlessly animated. My favorite Jaeger is Lady Danger and my favorite Kaiju is Otachi. 

You really get a sense of how massive these things are. All of the fight scenes use elements such as intense rainstorms and bright, colorful lighting to epic effect, but in my opinion the best battle and the one that uses those elements the best is the Hong Kong Brawl. The action, tension and surprises all come together to create an experience that begs to be seen on a gigantic theater screen. 
As an interesting piece of trivia, all the Kaiju in the film were made with the mindset of designing a monster suit to be worn by a human.

THE MUSIC
OHMYGAWD! The music in this movie is so FREAKIN' gooood! Ramin Djawadi did an amazing job composing a score that captures the tragic, beautiful, quirky and epic mood of the film. And the main theme can be used to make just about anything awesome.

A NEARLY FLAWLESS FILM?
I'm really trying hard to find something that legitimately bothers me about the movie and the closest thing I can think of is a strange edit in the film.
Its in the scene where Newt goes to Hannibal Chau. After Chau explains where he got his name from he says: "Now tell me what you want before I gut you like a pig and feed you to the skin louse". Scene ends.
Several more scenes pass
Then when it cuts back to them he asks again "What do you want?", and only now does Newt answer him. I feel like there should have been an extra line or two before their first meeting scene ended. Maybe Newt could've said that it needed to be discussed in private and that would give them a reason to go to the balcony over looking the Kaiju Worshipers. But really, while it's an odd edit, it's basically that piece of lettuce included on the side of a burger and fries plate at a restaurant, you wonder why it's there for a bit before brushing it aside and moving on to enjoy the main meal.

Basically, Pacific Rim has everything I could ever want in a movie. Great characters, a good story and fantastic action. It surpassed all my expectations.
I'm not sure if Uprising will be able to capture the same feelings I have when watching the first one, but it still looks awesome in its own right and I'm pretty sure I'll love it regardless.

On my way to see Pacific Rim, I mentioned how I hoped both Pacific Rim and Godzilla 2014 would help lead the way to a new renaissance of giant monster movies. And that's exactly what happened. Toho would make a few new Godzilla films. The success of Godzilla 2014 led to Legendary acquiring the rights to King Kong and creating the MonsterVerse, one of the few Cinematic Universes besides Marvel, that actually knows what it's doing.
Even though it didn't quite make its money back in the states, the international gross more than made up for that, ensuring that we would see more Jaeger/Kaiju battles in the future.
I think I speak for most Kaiju fans when I say that this is an amazing time to be alive!

Till next time, I have been your host Gryphon

and I hope you've enjoyed your time here in my lair.

So long...

If you would like to see more from The Gryphon's Lair, Be sure to give my Facebook page a 'LIKE' to see updates and other related stuff. Thanks for reading!
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SONIC MANIA & SONIC FORCES - Sonic Retrospective Follow-Up

It seems like forever since I worked on my first big retrospective for the Sonic the Hedgehog game series. And I'm not sure if I made it clear there, but I'm a pretty big fan of the series. Most of the games are a fun time that could always lift up my mood.

And on July 22nd 2016, I needed a lift. I don't remember what it was that day that made me so depressed, but watching the Sonic the Hedgehog 25th Anniversary live stream certainly got me out of it, awkward sound issues and all. The 2 biggest highlights from the stream were the trailers for the newest games in the series: Sonic Mania and "Project 2017".

I've had the pleasure of playing both games and enjoying them, now I'm ready to talk about them.
I will be looking over the Nintendo Switch versions of both games.
So without any further ado...

SONIC MANIA
(Playstation 4, XBox One & Nintendo Switch - August 15, 2017)
(PC - August 29, 2017)

Since Episode 3 of 'Sonic the Hedgehog 4' never got released, many fans no longer consider Sonic 4 as a whole cannon. I think even SEGA themselves don't acknowledge it anymore, since they didn't even include it in their slideshow from the live stream. But now, I think I can safely consider Sonic Mania to be the TRUE Sonic the Hedgehog 4.
In fact, the story directly follows the events of Sonic 3 & Knuckles. Being ever so resilient and stubborn, Dr. Eggman along with a new team of robots known as the Hard Boiled Heavies infiltrate Angel Island in search of the Phantom Ruby, a powerful gemstone with the power to distort time and reality. As you could guess, Sonic teams up with his pals Tails & Knuckles to stop them.

Mania is unlike any Sonic game released by SEGA, in that it wasn't developed by SEGA. Taking over those duties was a man named Christian Whitehead who had previously worked on the Android/iOS ports of Sonic 1 & 2 and the 2011 Remaster of Sonic CD. I think he did an amazing job on those ports, so getting him to work on a new official Sonic game was an ideal decision. His mobile ports were great and now Mania, a game meant to celebrate Sonic's 25th Anniversary, is absolutely fantastic!
...Despite being released a little over a year late.

Mania's gameplay for the main characters is mostly the same as it was in Sonic 3 & Knuckles. However, Sonic has a new skill called the Drop Dash. When jumping and holding down the one of the jump buttons, Sonic will instantly pick up speed and charge forward the moment he hits the ground. I found this technique to be pretty cool when I remembered it was there. I'm slightly embarrassed to say that as I first played through the game and was having a blast doing so, I completely forgot about Sonic's new move and never used it once. That would change eventually though.
Tails and Knuckles still control the same as they did in the last game, and when playing as Sonic and Tails you can actually control Tails and make him carry Sonic to high ground. There are 12 Zones with 2 Acts each to travel through, most of which are from the past 2D Sonic games. But they aren't simple cut and pasted Zones. Each of the returning Zones have been "Remixed", with new designs, gimmicks and dangers. Including some with a few nods to other past levels. I'm honestly surprised they didn't end up calling this game "Sonic Generations 1½".
But there are some new levels in Mania, 5 in fact. All of them are pretty good, I'm especially fond of Mirage Saloon and Titanic Monarch.
The Boss fights after each Act are unique and different, while borrowing a few gimmicks from older ones. A few familar faces show up like Metal Sonic and the Pistons from Sonic 1. Also, I froze up and heard 'The Sound of Silence' playing when I saw the Death Egg Robot pop up in Act 2 of Green Hill Zone.

And to help make it through these levels are those trusty monitor boxes, with the returning elemental shields which are still awesome to use. But one new item for Sonic and friends to use is the Hyper Ring. It may appear to do nothing but turn your ring count blue once you first grab it, but after you take a hit, the rings you lose are fewer and considerably larger. Each of these rings contains a random multiple of the ring count you lost. If your fast enough, you could potentially get every single one of your rings back.
Speaking of rings that are considerably larger, the giant rings that lead to a Special Stage are back and you can find them throughout the Zones for a chance to nab a Chaos Emerald. Thankfully, there are no half pipes in sight. Instead, the stages consist of a mixture of the ones from Sonic CD and Sonic 3 & Knuckles. You have to run across a track while chasing a UFO holding the Emerald, if you can catch up to it before the time runs out, the Emerald is yours. In order to help catch it, you'll have to collect Blue Spheres to increase your speed and rings to extend your time. All the while avoiding spikes, bombs and falling off the tracks.
At first, these stages can be a bit intimidating but with a lot of practice, they're mostly a breeze. But Special Stage 5 can go STRAIGHT TO THE LOWEST LEVEL OF HELL THERE IS!!!!!!!!!!!
But it is still worth it to unlock Super Sonic, Super Knuckles and Super Tails (sadly missing his killer Flickies).
You'll also need them to access the true Final Zone of the game.

I cannot praise the graphics enough, this game looks absolutely beautiful. It is one of the best Genesis-like games I've ever seen. Some have even argued it looks like it could play on the Sega Saturn. There are even some beautifully animated openings and endings.
And the Music is also very good. Aside from the returning themes from previous Zones, there's also re-mixed versions and brand new music composed by Tee Lopes of PagodaWest Games. At the end of the day, Sonic Mania is simply an amazing game. I would even call it Game of the Year material. (Well, almost Game of the Year). I adore pretty much everything about this game a whole, whole lot and I can absolutely recommend it to anyone, weather they're a Sonic fan or not.

I'm so glad I pre-ordered the Collectors Edition of this game and got this freakin' amazing statue!

SONIC FORCES
(Playstation 4, XBox One, Nintendo Switch & PC - November 7, 2017)

With Sonic Mania being developed independently, SEGA themselves where working on their own main series game.

Originally known as 'Project 2017', the game would later be named 'Sonic Forces', a game in which Dr. Eggman has taken over the entire planet and it's up to Sonic and a newly formed Resistance to take it back. Classic Sonic, last seen in 'Sonic Generations' returns to help and we also have a brand new playable character. (More on that later).

Upon it's release, Sonic Forces became probably the most critically polarizing Sonic game to date. And I'd be lying if I said I didn't agree with some of the complaints.

But let's break it down as usual.
The gameplay has 3 basic styles, 2 of them being Modern and Classic Sonic. Did you like how they played in Sonic Generations? Because that's basically what your getting.
However, there are some hiccups to both styles. Modern Sonic is mostly good. Although, the changing of buttons to make Sonic jump and boost caught me way off guard and even resulted in several deaths.
As for Classic Sonic, if you played Mania and then went straight to Forces like I did, your gonna notice a major difference in how he jumps. He feels a lot heavier when making jumps, causing you to miss your landing or accidentally fall to your death. That is so irritating. Also, the Drop Dash from Mania is back and it works just as well. Playing Classic Sonic overall feels like a mixed bag.

As for that third gameplay style, it's you. Or rather, your own custom character called an Avatar you can create. When the game was first teased, it ended with the tagline: "Join the Resistance", and this is what they meant. Avoiding any bad Sonic OC jokes, when I first heard about this, I thought that making your own resistance fighter to play alongside Sonic and friends was a great idea and a good way to involve the player. There are tons of customization options available from the start and even more are unlocked as you play the game.

This is my character, Eric the Raven. Why? Because 'The Crow' with Brandon Lee is one of my favorite movies of all time.

The Avatar plays similarly to Modern Sonic, although there's no boosting. Instead of homing attacking enemies, you use a grappling hook to grab and slam right into them. The grappling hook can also help you traverse the levels. They can also use new weapons called a 'Wispon', a special gun that allows you to use the Wisp powers from previous games. The problem with it is that you can only use one Wispon to use one specific Wisp power in a level. And while that does encourage you to replay levels with other Wispon's to find other paths and secrets, I feel like we should have been able to switch between weapons during gameplay. The different Wispon's also have their own way of attacking enemies. I personally go with the Burst one, because I can destroy tons of enemies with a stream of FIRE!!!
There are also certain levels where your Avatar will team up with Sonic in which you can preform a Double Boost attack, where you speed through the levels, annihilating everything in your path. 

I do like the gameplay of Sonic Forces overall. However, aside from Classic Sonic's control issues, there are a few more things that irritate me about the game. 

The first thing is the levels. The levels themselves are well designed and I do like going through them don't get me wrong. It's their length that I don't like. Most of the time you'll find yourself boosting through the levels, ramming through enemies and then the level is over. Even some of the later levels will end a lot sooner than you think. I should not spend as much time in a modern Sonic level as I do speed running Green Hill Zone from the first game. I feel like there should have been more 3D sections with an emphasis on platforming rather than boosting.

While I think the story is serviceable, some of the characters don't service it very well. I'm sad to say that one of these characters is Classic Sonic.
I should explain a bit further, this game actually shares continuity with Sonic Mania. Because of the power of the Phantom Ruby, Classic Sonic is transported to the Modern Series universe...from another dimension. Yes, not from a different time as established in Generations. Throughout the course of the game, Classic Sonic is more of an afterthought than a necessity. It all just seems pointless.

And then there's the new villain of the game, Infinite, a Jackal Mercenary hired by Eggman who wields the power of the Phantom Ruby. He was a wicked design and has an admittedly awesome theme song with edges that I cut myself on several times. 
I thought that maybe he would have been a cool new villian along the lines of Shadow the Hedgehog from SA2. But, while he looks cool and sounds cool, I think Infinite was wasted. He has little to no development and when you defeat him, all he does is poof out of existence and he's never seen again. 
Even in the bonus 'Episode Shadow' DLC that does actually explain Infinite's origins, it's not really that grand. I was very disappointed. (Completing the DLC Episode also unlocks Shadow to be playable in Modern Sonic levels.)
On the brighter side, Knuckles is no longer depicted as an unintelligent idiot like he was in the Boom games, that was something I greatly appreciated. 

The music is also a mixed bag. The orchestral pieces are pretty good, but the vocal tracks are very generic, forgetful and they loop way too often. 

As for the boss fights. Some are good, most range from being a test of patience to being teeth grindingly irritating, especially against Infinite. The fights with Infinite are ridiculous, he spams the powers of the Phantom Ruby to attack you and it gets really annoying. And the final boss...it was tiring, it was aggravating and it took me 30 minutes to beat it. I wish I had had Super Sonic.
In fact, Super Sonic isn't unlocked via Special stages or collecting special items, he's free DLC...assuming you bought him before late January, then it costs you $2.

UPDATE: As of January 24th, Super Sonic has been made free DLC forever. But still...

You know how in Sonic games when you collect 100 rings, you get an extra life? Not in this game. There are no lives in this game, you simply restart the game at the last check point you got before you died. Rings are still necessary to avoid dying and there are plenty of large patches of them in the levels. Once you do collect 100 Rings, your total caps off at that and every hit you take makes you lose 20. Essentially giving you 5 hits until you die. 
While that's an interesting idea, it makes the process of collecting all the rings in a level, one of the funnest parts of any Sonic game for me, seem rather irrelevant.
That is however, unless you play the game on Hard Mode. Yes, you have to play the HARD MODE in order to collect more than 100 rings! Before you even begin playing, the player is given a choice of difficulty. You can either play on Normal Mode: "For beginners who haven't played a Sonic game before." or Hard mode, which despite it's name, has no significant difficulty curve whatsoever and plays EXACTLY the same as Normal Mode, which leads me to ask: What is the point!?!??

But even with all these drawbacks, I simply can't bring myself to hate Sonic Forces. At least while I was playing it, it didn't bore me like Sonic Boom did. It didn't have me fighting the controls and rage quitting like Sonic and the Secret Rings did. Sonic Forces is not an amazing game nor is not a terrible game, it's just an average experience that could have been so much more and I can come back to it every now and then, but not as much as Sonic Mania.

All I can do now is hope that development of future Sonic games will implement only the best elements from these games and that will result in memorable experiences I will want to experience again and again.  

Till next time, I have been your host Gryphon

and I hope you've enjoyed your time here in my lair.

So long...

If you would like to see more from The Gryphon's Lair, Be sure to give my Facebook page a 'LIKE' to see updates and other related stuff. Thanks for reading!
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KAIJU BOX 2: THE REVENGIN-ING

I had initially planned to end 2017 with a different kind of post, but just this evening I came home to a very unexpected surprise: My second Kaiju Box!
To get an idea of what Kaiju Box is, be sure to check out the blog post where I opened up my first one. 
Now a lot of people including myself have had to wait a long time for this to arrive, so I'm a little curious to see what's inside it as I have not seen any of the content that's been teased aside from the t-shirt and the headlining feature of said box.
I'm actually writing this blog as I'm opening and examining the contents, so my reactions are as genuine as possible. Let's get started!

The first thing I grabbed was a baseball cap with the Batman logo transmogrified to be Cthulhu. It looks really cool, but my biggest concern is weather or not it would fit my big fat head or not. And it does! I'm actually really surprised by this fact. The green color makes it seem like this hat should glow in the dark, but it don't.

Oh lord, not these again. I remember when these NECA Wizkids figures first came out, I saw them all the time at my local comic book/game store and I made it my mission to collect them all, which I eventually did. And now I have an extra Male Muto. If I had gotten the Female Muto, I would have been upset. That was the one I had the most trouble trying to find.

Well, the box came with 2 t-shirts with exclusive artwork by comic artist Jeff Zornow. The shirts are cool and I especially love the Gyaos one, but the wrong sizes were included. I distinctly remember ordering the box and selecting the 3XL size option. So now I have to figure that mess out.

Of course the headline item was the NECA Shin Godzilla figure. Now seeing as how I already have one and did a review on it, I actually have some idea of what I want to do with this one. It involves paint.

There's also another Cthulhu item that seems to be advertising something called 'The Cthulhu Wars' which I cannot find any info on. But it is a circular magnet made to look like the logo's you see on the back of Toho movies showing what monsters are included in the movie. Pretty cool.

Again, I know nothing about Kaiju Wars, but I like the King Ceasar card I got.

I was not expecting this to come with a movie. And I have never heard of this movie before, I might check it out later.

These are some nice Godzilla 2014 pins.

Probably one of the more unique items is this exclusive comic book. And there's not much to this first issue, it's an average set up to a bigger story with some extremely hokey, even below Power Rangers level dialogue. I have no idea if I'm gonna read the rest, let alone be able to find the other issues.

I kinda like the first box more, but this one was still pretty neat, aside from the T-Shirt snafu (Hopefully I can get that sorted out). As of right now, there is no Indiegogo fundraiser for a third box. But if you like what you saw and you want to get your hands on stuff like this, simply follow Kaiju Box at any of the links shown below to find out how you too can join the destruction.

Till next time, I have been your host Gryphon

and I hope you've enjoyed your time here in my lair.

So long...

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