Titanfall: The game will do everything for you and make you feel like you're pro

Titanfall has had some of the BIGGEST hype and excitement to grace the next gen phase of games, but unfortunately the boys from Infinity Ward's Call of Duty based games have decided to forego next gen innovation to the FPS genre.

Respawn entertainment has decided to make a dumbed down version call of duty that features a soldier drugged up on adrenaline with access to a retarded mid-sized robot so you can kill NPC's in online multiplayer.

The game is so easy that it will do most of the actions for you and pat you on the back telling you how awesome you are and that you will have infinite girlfriends/boyfriends because you are so good at Titanfall. I'm not kidding, you get a gun that will lock on to any person that is visible on screen and will auto-target all of their heads and once you pull the trigger once, the gun will shoot X amount of times where X is the amount of enemies on screen, so yes by doing nothing but pulling the trigger once will you instantly kill all enemies on screen. The second thing that Titanfall constantly does for you is make sure you are aware of all your HUD information. What is HUD information? HUD is your "heads up display" that often has numerical values that tells you your health, ammo, radar, etc. Titanfall will make sure to yell at you when an enemy looks at you, and will also make sure to blare in your ears that you are being shot at, even though how obvious it is to be shot at by an enemy or that you are taking damage for that matter.

Titanfall's awesomely cool new mechanics feature an adrenaline pumped parkour/free running way of moving about the terrain. It's a cool idea to add in intense running along walls or wall jumping to reach higher grounds, but it does not feel rewarding in any way, shape, or form. The free running/parkour system is so dumbed down that it feels like your just mashing the space bar to instantly have magnetic powers that let your run up anything.

The last and quite possibly the biggest problem are the robots themselves, I could probably give this game a passing letter grade based on the foot soldier gameplay, but as soon as you get your titan after 2 minutes of play you will never leave it again. The titan combat does not differ at all when it comes to looking around and shooting, but once you start moving it feels clunky in an unnatural way that betrays its aiming fluidity, making the robot controls quite contradicting. Also once your in a robot it becomes a mech battle, and every single mech/robot game before this is ten times better than fighting in a titan. Once your in a titan, killing enemy players who are not in a titan feels like you are swatting at flies, giving you no challenge whatsoever.

Another feature that will ensure you feel good about yourself is that online multiplayer isn't really online multiplayer at all, in fact you can quite easily kill more AI foot soldiers for more points than trying to kill someone in a titan.

Don't buy this game, the graphics are on the unimpressive side and the game is a big step backwards for the hardcore or even challenging FPS genre. While I hate doing pure biased reviews of games, this one is an exception that left me so unsatisfied I could not stop myself.
~Djr7

Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio [10]: Reincarnation of I-401

Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio: Ars Nova, has seen the mental models steadily progress and develop human nature into their personalities as they diverge from the Admiralty Code and drift away from Kongo and the Fleet of Fog. The show has done an excellent job of showing the steady changes of these AI weapons as they turn towards Captain Gunzo and Iona to discover a meaning to their existence beyond that of being a pawn of the Admiralty Code.

Episode 10 serves as the pinnacle of character progression for Takao and Iona, as they begin to understand their feelings and take action based how they feel rather than logical courses of action.

After being attacked by Iona's twin sibling submarines I-402 and I-400, they slowly drift towards the bottom of the ocean with no means of recovery as their oxygen supply and temperatures continue to drop. The conversation between Gunzo and Iona show just how much Iona has changed since Gunzo first met her. Her speech and body language is less stoic as she becomes more human after her emotions conflict with her program instincts telling her to abandon Gunzo, she expresses worry, sadness, and desperation as she looks for a way to save the young captain despite his orders to give up on him.

Everything about this episode was saddening and emotional as the mental models awaken to their newly established sense of humanity. Iona shows that she is not bound to her own Admiralty Code of obeying Gunzo, and while she was ordered to abandon the captain, she could not bear the thought of forsaking him, her decision to keep him safe is own not only of loyalty, but shows her desire to be with Gunzo.

Takao's connection with Gunzo was unrequited, and unfortunately they never had any moments together aside from some humourous encounters where Takao is too shy to approach Gunzo head on. Takao's scene was almost too sad to bear, the music playing in the background as Takao dives to find the I-401 was just heart wrenching as she finds Gunzo barely alive thanks to Iona's effort. Seeing Gunzo and Iona's core together in the pod saddens Takao as she realizes she probably doesn't have a place by his side, and in turn she sacrifices her nano-materials that make up her physical form for Iona to recover in what is one of the best scenes of the show.

The result was a super bad-ass combination of Takao and Iona to create a new battleship. Takao will be missed, she was my favourite character, but alas, the new I-401 submarine will serve as a reminder to her. One of Takao's better moments was in episode 9 where she changes her colours from red to blue in defiance of Kongo but also as a statement that she belongs to Gunzo's fleet.

Before the episode ended, Kongo shows her own progression as her deep desire to fight Iona and kill Gunzo comes crashing down on her as she is betrayed by own kind, with Maya being revealed as an empty surveillance unit meant to keep tabs on Kongo. I-400 and I-402 submarines are shown as Iona's twin sisters who are fully under command of the Admiralty Act and seal Kongo away as she is seen as defected, how ironic.

I was rather surprised by Kongo's expression towards Maya's sudden exposure as a fake. It seems pretty obvious that Kongo was about to call Maya her friend before being sealed up by the submarine twins. I do hope Maya comes back, as her cheerfulness and happy personality will be missed, especially whenever she would shout " it's a Carnival!" I wonder if Kongo will end up joining Gunzo's side, as the real enemy is yet to be revealed, but all I can say is I hope Haruna, Kirishima and Hyuga reclaim their battleships and duke it out with the submarine twins I-400 and I402.

~Djr7

Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio: (1-9) Naval Warfare with Ship Girls

Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio: Ars Nova, thrives on two factors which makes the show incredibly entertaining; tactical naval combat and entertaining battle ships that manifest into living female dolls built from nano-technology; its awesome.

When I first started watching Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio, I was quite skeptical and quite honestly turned off by various factors. The characters were boring, the plot appeared weak, the notion of mankind being cut off from electronic communications was "meh", and I really did not care for the 3D animation. While Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio had a slow start, it picked up speed and quickly turned into the most entertaining show for myself.

The naval fire fights are half the reason to watch

The naval battles are both tactically surprising and visually awesome. I can't think of any other show that has naval battle, so I guess Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio gets a +1 for that. What makes the naval fights so entertaining is the fact that these battleships are alive and super beefed-up on steroids, they manifest themselves into a female "doll" called "mental-models". These "mental models" are weapons set out to push mankind out of the sea in order to slowly wipe them out. Each of the mental model characters have different personalities and have awesome character development that are essential to the conflicts and growth of the show.

The battleships are visually amazing, with all the crazy firepower of a Gundam except on the more modern and realistic naval warships. Unlike most shows were the battles are determined by fire power and a will to fight, Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio uses tactics and the human factor of protagonist Chihaya Gunzo as he always finds a way to not only turn the tides of battle against the other mental models, but also spares them and teaches them about what it means to exist, simultaneously converting them, he kinda reminds me of Lelouch.

While the "main" cast includes captain Gunzo and his submarine mental model Iona, the rest of the crew are introduced early and easily forgotten, in fact they are pretty much swept under the rug and only serve to inform us of the situation during fights or panic during some of the tense moments. I would consider the human crew members to be "seat warmers" as all they do is hold the front until the mental model characters step in and take the stage.

Heavy Cruiser Takao is the first Fleet of Fog member to engage Iona in battle, and as a result grows a desire to have Gunzo as her captain, she becomes more girlish towards Gunzo and is easily one of my favourite characters.

Submarine Iona is an emotionless little girl mental model that obeys Gunzo and slowly begins to experience human characteristics.

 Battleship Haruna is somewhat of a database that collectively stores human terms and ideals, while she is always calm and collected, she looses all composure if her coat is taken off. She begins to change and devote herself to protecting Maki, an artificial child created by humans who refers to Haruna as Haru-haru. Haruna is easily the most popular of the mental models.

Battleship Kirishima is uncertain of what to do and tends to just follow Haruna. She is excited and overjoyed during her battle with Iona as her boredom of the Fleet of Fog becomes apaprent when she finds herself "alive" when dueling with the submarine. I tend to forget what Kirishima looks like. Since her destruction after battling with Iona she takes over a stuffed teddy bear until she can gather nano-machines to rebuild her body, which is sorta funny but I grow tired of seeing her as a teddy bear attached to Maki.

Battleship Hyuga is the more technical of the other mental models, taking on a scientific apparel and becomes infatuated with Iona. Her unrequited affection to Iona along with Takao's desire to have Gunzo makes for some light, enjoyable comedy.

Head Battleship Kongo serves as a pillar of the Fleet of Fog as she sees Iona's actions as a mutation that must be vaporized. While she is at the head of The Fog, she begins to develop human emotion, but only of hatred and develops a desire to kill Gunzo to restore the Fleet of Fog to its power and wipe out humans.

Heavy Cruiser Maya is a cheery energetic mental model that finds pleasure in everything she does as a weapon. She follows Kongo and is always chanting "It's a Carnival!"

Submarine I-402 is one of the twin sisters of Iona and is fully under the Fleet of Fog's Admiralty Code with no emotion or personality.

Submarine I-400 is the other twin sister of Iona and I402, like her sister I-402 she is fully under the Fleet of Fog's Admiralty Code with no emotion or personality.

Since the rest of the human characters are pretty much ignored, this leaves plenty of screen time for the battleship mental models to take the stage and deliver and awesome combination of epic naval fights and personal conflict and development. Each mental model has their own motive for existing, and while they are not exactly on each others side, they create a diverse and entertaining series of events as they each learn different meanings of existence, whether it be love, desire, family, or simply doing what they want to.

The mental model characters all start off with the notion of being a "weapon" and nothing more, while they certainly have a personalized appearance and different attitudes, they are quite set on being nothing more than AI that follow the "will of The Fog" rules. The Fog is what the battleships belong to, it is their identity as a sudden alien attack on humans, they refer to themselves as The Fog and operate only to follow a set of rules they have (Admiralty Code). Iona is the one exception to this, as she has a different set of rules that outline an existence to follow Gunzo's orders and nothing more.

I really love this show and how it deviated immensely from it's original setting and turned into an awesome conflict of interests between Gunzo and the mental models.

~Djr7

Madoka Magica: Rebellion - The Other Side of the Coin

So earlier this week the Canada showing finally came. It was a tough journey avoiding spoilers for a good 2 months but I lasted; I think it was worth it. Suffice to say, this post will be filled with spoilers so if you haven't watched the movie, I suggest you don't go further. Though opinions on this movie are most likely highly conflicted (as was I after first finishing), I feel I can finally calm down enough to write cohesively.

Coppelion - Life in a Contaminated City

As far as post-apocalyptic worlds go, we've seen a lot of them; nuclear bombs causing human extinction, random weird viruses, and the fan favourite zombie infestation. I've always liked the notion of a post-apocalyptic setting, but most of the time I feel like its used as a stereotypical setting with really shallow excuses as to how the world become so fk'd up.

Coppelion has a realistic and relevant reason for its apocalyptic city. A nuclear accident occurs and ends up contaminating the city of Tokyo in radioactive waste, forcing most of the population to flee, however plenty of people were left behind and forced to live in hazmat suites awaiting rescue from the outside. Whats interesting is how the actual nuclear destruction in Japan back in 2011 is still a concern and shows relevance to the story of Coppelion, kinda showing a "what-if" scenario, even though the manga was released back in 08.

Coppelion is actually the group of high school students who were genetically modified to be immune to the radioactivity, and serve as government workers to rescue those who are still trapped in the contaminated city, as well as clean up the large amount of waste. We follow the rescue team of Ibara, the fearless leader and perhaps the only interesting person in the show; Aoki who is only ever used as a humour scapegoat as we spend more time laughing at her than with her; and then there's Taeko, the girl who can talk to animals and is completely invisible to the show.

The show is 10 episodes in, and so far my opinion has changed about three times. When I first started watching the show I thought it was going to be about humanity and our lack of care for the world. The beauty and melancholic environments gave me an impression of how beautiful our world can be without mankind. The background art and setting of this contaminated city is wonderful and the OST is very fitting and somehow reminds me of Virtues Last Reward. A few episodes in and it becomes apparent that we're merely following Ibara, Aoki, and Taeko as they aimlessly rescue small groups of survivors with no actual plot or deeper understanding for the environment. I started getting bored relatively quickly with the characters, as they weren't really doing anything interesting.

The show started throwing in some government involvement in regards to how the whole city was contaminated and closed while people were still inside. I liked the idea that the remainder of the survivors were mainly criminals who weren't evacuated from their prison, as well as the 1st division government army that was tasked with the evacuation but were left behind and has since turned towards revenge. I started to enjoy the show once more with the whole survival theme as Ibara, Aoki and Taeko have to hold out against an army while their government has to get past a summit meeting before rescuing the remaining survivors.
The first division army ends up being the antagonist that was missing for most of intro, but it was worth the wait as their plan to contaminate the rest of Japan and the world is quite a feat.

After becoming interested once again while enjoying the show a bit more as a casual watch, a few random characters are added into the mix to take the current theme and push it a little to far to the point where I'm just sitting along for the ride and don't really care. It's unfortunate the show kept degrading itself to a more casual watch that has shallow meaning, but it's still fun to see how the cast manages to make everything entertaining a midst the somewhat serious events; it's worth the watch.

~Djr7

Final Fantasy 14: Diverging Paths

So this blog has been pretty dead, but I guess it is my own blog so might as well make a post. An archive of the adventures our guild took within FF14. We went into this game, Rho, Aaro, Cody/Rei Menu/10 billion other names, and myself looking to see what we could make of it. Rho wasn't fully convinced on FF14 and no idea what Cody wanted, but off on our adventure we went. My personal main drive was Cody's constant complaint that I had "Big Fish, Small pond" Syndrome and I couldn't play these bigger MMOs because of it. I was out to prove it incorrect.

Only screenshot of us running together

As we progressed through our nub levels racing towards 50, it was Cody that reached it first. I was too busy with work and Rho and Aaro quickly took a liking to crafting and was busy crafting away. This was where for first split began, Cody decided he wanted to get his relic weapon asap and left off for the biggest FC on our server, ODAM, smashing his head on Chimera. I originally planned to never craft as I end up focus on merchanting in every game I play to become super rich, I wanted to divert that time and attention to progression. I guess you just can't take a merchanting soul out of a player.

My gold saw to commemorate Carpentry being my first

It started with carpentry as I wanted to craft my own relic weapon as Rho started with Blacksmith for the same reason. Quickly we realized how much money was to be made in this and we couldn't stop crafting. Meanwhile Cody was still working towards Relic weapon, I believe during this phase he was stuck on the first major roadblock, Titan.

The days when pre-relic weapon sold so well

The next few weeks were followed with Rho and I mastering the rest of our crafts as we expanded our money as much as possible. Crafting was fun because of the mass money we were just rolling around with. I was loved by many for selling everything for cheaper than everyone else and hated by all crafters (especially when I broke the Leatherworking cartel). Then came the biggest push for gil ever, crafting the final end game items i70 gear.

This where where Cody came back into the frey, being in the largest FC meant he could get us tome mats, items you had for farm from end game dungeons. While we were busy rafting, we couldn't run the dungeons ourselves needing us to buy these mats. Us being the only crafters doing this, we were able to turn 270k into 2 mil, extreme amounts of gold at that time. We knew clear well that only gold buyers were affording our prices but we had the monopoly on our server, so we looked the other way.


Everything was perfect, we had lots of money, fully geared ourselves and ready to finally try for end game content. This was when everything went downhill. Squeenix decided they wanted to get rid of gold sellers so they did a sweeping ban on everyone over a certain gil threshold. Obviously that applied to us raking in large money. Luckily I was just under the bar, but Rho was far richer and got hit by the ban wave. This would lead to the week long wait on the fate of Rho's character.

A month into the game, all of us that had joined with the intention of playing together, but somehow our paths had all taken us in different directions, whether it be by choice or the fates of the devs. Roll another month and now I am the last man standing. As I reflect, I ended up getting what I wanted for better or worse. With Rho out of the picture, I was clearly top crafter on the server and most likely the most known player on the server. The final step left is to beat the so called unbeatable final boss of FF14 to hang up my bow.

~Pearz

Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Kaku

Higurashi Outbreak was in a sense, disappointing, yet very satisfying. When I first heard about Outbreak plot being centered around Keiichi and Rena during a mysterious viral infection, I was ecstatic. I had high hopes while imagining a different spin off universe with Rena's insanity alongside Keiichi's brilliant designs, but overall I can't help but feel there wasn't enough impact for this OVA that made the first two seasons of Higurashi so memorable.

After a sudden quarantine of Hinamizawa, Keiichi and the others continue to live normally, as the whole "virus" thing seems to have spread across a greater area outside of the village. All of the sudden Mion shows up bearing news that there are some oddities occurring in the village based on the viral infection, and for once I am happy we didn't need another heavy description of Oyashiro-sama's curse.

Higurashi Outbreak is an example of a "bad-end" that happens during the regular timeline for Rika, where we actually see things advance far beyond the usual deaths of someone in Ni and Kai, and I wish we could see more of this bad-end where everyone still lives. There is a lot of great content in this OVA that isn't really shown during any of the other installments, including a rare and very insightful, albeit short discussion between Rika and Hanyuu about their spiritual relationship and tasks to observe mankind's end.

What I love about this OVA is how it is completely tailored to fans of the show who wanted some serious, crazy, bloody action with a hint of good-old-fashioned Higurashi mystery and thrills. The entire content of Outbreak is almost a direct taking of "what would I like to see" from the Higurashi universe.

Remember when Rena and Keiichi fought in an epic battle of cleaver vs metal bat? Now Keiichi and Rena work together with their insane desire to kill those who challenge them, almost as if they remembered their battle against each other, knowing full well of their potential. Remeber the photographer who is always butting in and getting himself killed, guess what he isn't in it, and neither is Takano, since we've had enough of those two.

It is nice to see the Doctor who Takano was taken in by, get some screen time alongside a mysterious woman who represents the new puppeteer controlling the strings of the conspiracy.

Dr. Irie? Well he was always kind of annoying and useless, how about we have him get infected and go insane? One thing I can promise you, is that if you do indeed like Higurashi, there will be several things about this OVA where you will flip your sh!t and smile in excitement.

If you liked Higurashi at all, you will enjoy this, but if you loved the thrills and steady buildup of mystery and tension, you might find yourself begging for Oyashiro's curse to sprucin things up a bit. You will get to see some sudden turn of events as the mystery of the virus is well explained for such a short video, however that can be said for mostly everything about the OVA. There was plenty of awesomeness, but unfortunately it was jam packed into a short episode that would have done well to extend the duration to let things settle in, because once you finish Outbreak, you will be left there wondering why it ended so suddenly.

Rena's insane smile as she willingly slashes at the throats of her victims, while Keiichi's rage fuels Satoshi's bat as several faces get smashed in; are some of the best moments of the show and overall this gets my approval, being the Higurashi fan that I am.

~Djr7

Gen'ei wo Kakeru Taiyou - EP 02 - Dark themes

Talking bird attitude, your argument is invalid.

well I wasn't sure what to expect, was kinda thinking this would turn into a boring show, but surprisingly I enjoy the dark themes implanted thus far.

After last weeks introductory episode, Akari seems to have joined an anti-Daemonia (monster) combat unit that trains at an under cover school. Like all super secret combat groups, they need a cover to prevent suspicion, and what better way than to be a fortune telling academy. Seriously this is the worst cover ever. I know the whole theme here is tarot cards, and that each of the students have powers deriving from tarot cards, but they don't even study tarot cards at the school, which raises the question of why use a fortune telling cover if you don't even have fortune telling in the curriculum.

Luna's transformation

Rants aside, it seems that low key death of Akari's cousin wasn't a dream or anything. This is where the show gets a bit dark, as it turns out these monsters known as Daemonia, are evil spirits that pretty much take over a negative persons soul. These Daemonia go on a blood lust rampage, and the only way to stop them is to kill them, unfortunately this also kills the host, so yea, it turns out Akari killed her cousin. No one will ever blame Akari since everyone's memories get altered to forget about those who die from Daemonia take-overs.

Ginka, I wonder how well you will carry the humour

We get to meet the rest of the main girls at the school, and so far we have the somewhat innocent and polite girl, the girl with the attitude, and a girl with a sense of humour. It takes one scene of the three other girls, Ginka, Luna, Seira, to get a good sense of their characters. During this scene Ginka goes off to agree with Luna that they should have fun and get along with Akari. Seira then says there is no need to be friendly, and thus Genki agrees with her in a spiteful and comical manner that rewards us with a pissed off expression from Seira, this was priceless.

It was a bit foreshadowed how Akari's mother was involved with this Sephiro Fiore anti-Daemonia group, but what bugs me is how it seems Akari's mother didn't want Akari to gain the powers of the sun tarot and join the group. Akari says her mother left her the tarot cards, but in every flashback it seems she didn't want Akari touching them, so I guess we will have to see what all of that means, and whether or not the mother had some dark secrets.

One thing I noticed with the intro of the opening theme is how all of the girls are standing in front of a grave, whether this graveyard represents the people they end up killing from this sick and twisted way of life, or whether it belongs to some important person (Akari's mother?) remains to be seen. I just wanted to bring that up because it looked like it will be a meaningful clue.

Seira's transformation power is amazeballz

The girls' transformation scenes at this point show me one of two things, either their unlocked powers of the tarot card gives them a ton of power and thus makes them look super badass, or they just undergo a an alter ego new and improved attitude transformation. I'm not sure which one fits better but the overhaul is visually pleasing. Also to note is each girl has different powers based on their tarot card, but since we saw Akari's last episdoe I have to say of the remaining three, Seira has what I think is the best ability. She shoots ice arrows, except these ice arrows sound more like machine gun fire as she suddenly turns her ice bow into a stationary turret raining hell on the enemy.

dat look

Etia seems like a great character at this point, she isn't directly involved with the fighting per say, however she does show some strong emotions to her commanding officers as they shrug off the whole " hey you just killed you cousin its no biggie" attitude, with a sharp look of her own, or maybe I just like her dress, who knows.

It seems the other girls also went off and killed someone important to them, and with Akari having a bit of a Shinji moment, the dark tones are sure to continue. I just hope there's more substantial events to get this show off the ground.

Last thing I wanna add is how much I love the art, and that pretty much wraps this up.

~Djr7

Suisei no Gargantia Review+ Ending: Epic 9/10

Yea this is a bit late with the new season already in its second week, but whatever.

Suisei no Gargantia was one of my favourite shows of Spring 2013. What I enjoyed most was how the show didn't focus on explosions or crazy plot twists to carry my attention. What made Gargantia such a pleasure to watch, was how it focuses on each character's inner conflicts about their goals and finding meaning to their existence. Gargantia's main theme was a clash of cultures, adapting to new ways of life and comparing personal values against each other in order to determine the right path.

Ledo, a dutiful soldier who knows nothing but war, lives only to exterminate a threatening alien race. After a massive battle in space, Ledo is thrown into a worm hole and winds up on Earth, which was thought to be a frozen lifeless planet. Ledo finds himself on a peaceful planet where a melted ice-age period has left the Earth submerged underwater, where massive ship colonies house the human population. The ship Ledo finds himself on lives its days in peace and knows nothing of war. Impossible to re-join his army, Ledo has to figure out a means to "live", and tries to understand himself while on the giant ocean ship Gargantia.

Gargantia does a great job of growing it's characters over the course of the 13 episodes. The show has a slower pace that explores each character, rather than throwing a bunch of characteristics at you in a short span of time.

Now Suisei no Gargantia may not have a lot of action, but it definitely doesn't fall short of interesting and engaging. There are a few eye-popping events that occur, and ultimately everything comes down to a battle of wills. There are a few combat scenes, as well as one incredible final episode that reaches a conclusion to everyone's desires and personal decisions.

Suisei no Gargantia pulled out all the stops with an action packed ending, and managed to resolve all the main conflicts of the show. The final episode really captured the essence of the show, personal beliefs and struggles were mainly individual throughout the season, but in the end everyone is brought together in a clash that crushes some dreams, but ultimately has a happy ending.

Characters:
There were quite a few characters, and thankfully we didn't need much information on them to understand their personalities. The main characters Ledo and Amy, and even some of the better supporting characters grew as the show went on. We were able to clearly see personal struggles with how each character wanted to live their lives and what decisions they took to chase their dreams. Unfortunately I thought Ledo and Amy could have used more progression with each other, but then again I don't know what could have been cut-out in order to make this happen. Overall Ledo, Chamber, and Pinion were the my favourites, I thoroughly enjoyed their progress and they were mainly the sole reasons why I enjoyed the show so much. Their conflicts and choices shaped the events of Gargantia.

Story:
Now that I think about it, the main "plot" to Suisei no Gargantia was about Ledo adapting to his new life. This was excellently done with the help of all the supporting characters as this clash of cultures created meaningful emotions between Ledo and his new home. The story gets really interesting as the show goes on, and it got better and better. The ending to Gargantia was one of the best I have ever seen, all of the conflicts between characters and ways of life comes into a glorious action packed finale that sees everything come to a great end.

Visual:
I really loved the art of the show, the ship Gargantia was breathtaking, and although I found the action scenes to be lacking a little, the character art was bright, colourful, and beautiful. The animation quality differed from time to time, but the visuals and bright colours made it enjoyable.

Sound:
I don't think anything particularly stood out, but I found the audio wonderfully conveyed the spaces portrayed in the show. The composition of sound and visual of Gargantia made me fall in love with the ship's setting, how I wish that city of ships were real.

Overall:
I loved this show, it wasn't perfect, but everything was well executed to show how Ledo progressed from being a galactic soldier who knew only of war, to becoming an integrated part of the Gargantia ship, he was reborn with more "soul" and an appreciation for experiencing life.

Caution! Spoilers below on the ending.

There were a few defining moments of the show that I loved.

The beginning of the series has Ledo waking up to a brand new world, a seemingly peaceful life on the ocean liner Gargantia. These beginning moments for Ledo define his sense of loss and confusion. Ledo's personality and the story writing excellently convey how Ledo feels in such a different world that he must adapt to.

The Hideauze truth about humanity was something that threw Ledo into a mental nightmare. Ledo's shock to the Hideauze being of human origin was excellently presented, and ironic as Ledo was ruthlessly massacring the lot prior to the truth. Up until this point Ledo was starting to adapt to his new life but still had strong ties to his militaristic past, he was at a crossroads, trying to find a path for himself. just as Ledo finally finds something to do with his life on Earth, he is thrown into disarray. Even Chamber's attitude to the killing of the Hideauze helped Ledo realize that he still has no place in this new start on life, and that he must come to understand where he stands and how to move forward in search of a reason to live.

Once Ledo and Pinion had joined up with Ledo's former commander, it ended up revealing just how wrong the galactic alliance's influence was. I loved Pinion's progress as he became obsessed with the relics and how it pushed Ledo to attack the Hideauze and fall back on his military history. Once the bodies of the sacrificed were thrown into the water, it was sudden and without warning. This realization woke Ledo and Pinion from their desires and helped them see the right path to take. I really loved that moment of terror, seeing people suddenly being sacrificed in large numbers was quite the scene. Ledo's sudden flashback of his brother and Bebel reminds him how horrible these religious sacrifices are.

Pinion was one character that really grew on me. He was blinded by revenge and greed of obtaining the treasure trove he and his brother sought out. No one could stop Pinion from his desires, and the only person who could sway a man like Pinion turned out to be the lobster pirate Lukkage.

Special consideration for Lukkage, I didn't think she would appear after her early battles but she makes an important return and helps pinion and Ledo end Strikers reign. Her sudden interest with Pinion was the only thing that saved him from becoming engrossed in his treasure.

Striker was an awesome villain, her warped logical reasoning saw humans as a means to server her. Through her guidance she would lead humanity to happiness, however that happiness only warped the minds of humans and took away all individuality, making them her loyal servants to replicate the galactic army. Her clever use of a fake hologram made it seem like her pilot was still alive in order to trick Ledo into serving her. Not only was she a great villain to Ledo, but even more so to Chamber, who had a different view on life and how he saw machines as tools to help guide people rather than force people down a path.

Chamber may have started out as a support mobile weapon system, but he eventually grows an individual identity with his own thoughts based on surrounding information. When it came time for Ledo to risk his life in order to kill Striker, he ejects Ledo in order to save him, even though his program should not let him act in such a way. Chamber easily became an awesome character after telling Ledo he should survive and explore, as well as telling off Striker "Go to hell tin can!". Chamber was my favourite character of the show and really drove home the battle of machine purposes against Strikers "I am god" logic.

I was surprised to learn why the ship was called Gargantia, and as it turns out the secret mega catapult cannon, while only being a portion of its original size, was able to direct deadly accurate ballistics across a great distance as a weapon of huge destructive potential. This weapon was pretty bad ass compared to all of the other weapons since it holds a huge range and power advantage.

This one goes down as one of my favourites.

~Djr7