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Mothergamer (1568 KP) rated the PlayStation 4 version of Trials of Mana in Video Games
Jul 13, 2020
I remember playing the original Trials Of Mana and enjoying it for the story and gameplay. This Trials Of Mana is a remake and instead of a 2D topdown, it is now fully 3D with updated graphics and modernized gameplay. The story while simple is good and the game itself is charming because of the characters, music, and combat system. Battles are fun and grinding doesn't feel like a chore at all because of the more modern feel. You have 6 different characters to choose from for your main character and can choose 2 characters to be your companions to round out your party. This gives you different story chapters showing you different origin stories for each character as well as different villains. The world in the game is fairly linear with just the main quest and no real side quests, but that doesn't detract from the game too much because there is a lot of replay value with new game plus and the chance to play the game with new characters. The game is about 30 hours and for me personally it was fun and had a nice fairytale feel to it and it appealed to my nostalgia of the original and introduced my daughters to a new JRPG that they really liked. Full Mothergamer review is here: http://lorrie28-mothergamer.blogspot.com/2020/07/mothergamer-plays-trials-of-mana.html
Rejected Princesses: Tales of History's Boldest Heroines, Hellions, and Heretics
9.3
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Book
Blending the iconoclastic feminism of The Notorious RBG and the confident irreverence of Go the...
Lyndsey Gollogly (2893 KP) rated Seashells , Spells and Caramels in Books
Mar 21, 2021
40 of 250
Kindle
Seashells,Spells& Caramels ( Spells & Caramels book 1)
By Erin Johnson
Once read a review will be written via Smashbomb and link posted in comments
A magical French island. A dead contestant. An aspiring baker must clear her name before she gets burned.
Imogen Banks has dreamed her entire life of opening her own bakery in Seattle. But when she accidentally sets fire to her apartment and loses all her possessions, her dreams get toasted. Still coping with her loss, she receives a cryptic invitation she can't possibly refuse: entry into a mysterious baking competition on a beautiful French island.
When Imogen realizes the island village is magical and the bake-off’s participants are witches and wizards, she’s not sure her fledgling powers will be enough to win the coveted contest. In the midst of trying to cast her very first spell, a competitor drops dead and Imogen finds the psychic judges' mystical fingers all pointing at her. Can Imogen unlock her own magic and stop the killer from coming back for seconds or will she jump straight from the frying pan and into the fire?
This was a bit predictable but an easy pleasant read! She has a very entertaining relationship with a living flame and budding sweet friendship with a baking witch. This is British bake off with princes, villains and lots of magic!
Kindle
Seashells,Spells& Caramels ( Spells & Caramels book 1)
By Erin Johnson
Once read a review will be written via Smashbomb and link posted in comments
A magical French island. A dead contestant. An aspiring baker must clear her name before she gets burned.
Imogen Banks has dreamed her entire life of opening her own bakery in Seattle. But when she accidentally sets fire to her apartment and loses all her possessions, her dreams get toasted. Still coping with her loss, she receives a cryptic invitation she can't possibly refuse: entry into a mysterious baking competition on a beautiful French island.
When Imogen realizes the island village is magical and the bake-off’s participants are witches and wizards, she’s not sure her fledgling powers will be enough to win the coveted contest. In the midst of trying to cast her very first spell, a competitor drops dead and Imogen finds the psychic judges' mystical fingers all pointing at her. Can Imogen unlock her own magic and stop the killer from coming back for seconds or will she jump straight from the frying pan and into the fire?
This was a bit predictable but an easy pleasant read! She has a very entertaining relationship with a living flame and budding sweet friendship with a baking witch. This is British bake off with princes, villains and lots of magic!
LeftSideCut (3776 KP) rated Fast & Furious 9 (2021) in Movies
Jun 26, 2021
Jesus Christ, this is definitely in the running for the silliest film I've ever seen.
F9 contains everything you would expect from this franchise - big set pieces, defiant feats of physics, obnoxious music intervals, Vin Diesel inaudibly talking about family, increasingly Bond-level villains, a tiny bit of actual racing, a character who is dead not actually being dead, barbeques and Corona, and vague references to what Paul Walker's character is currently up to off screen.
It goes bigger on almost every aspect than it has before, and it's once again a mixed bag. Some of the action scenes are so, so ridiculous, especially a scene during the big finale that involves Ludacris and Tyrese Gibson (no spoilers here), but these moments are bogged down by a whole lot of nothing, providing an unnecessarily padded out runtime that makes the movie feel like a drag on more than one occasion. It overestimates how much the audience actually cares about the characters. But not to worry, at one point Vin Diesel downs a plane by throwing a truck at it, so you know, swings and roundabouts.
There's a whole heap of nonsense absolutely caking what is an enjoyable enough Fast & Furious movie. Nowhere near the best in the series, but a fun time if you can stay awake until the final third.
F9 contains everything you would expect from this franchise - big set pieces, defiant feats of physics, obnoxious music intervals, Vin Diesel inaudibly talking about family, increasingly Bond-level villains, a tiny bit of actual racing, a character who is dead not actually being dead, barbeques and Corona, and vague references to what Paul Walker's character is currently up to off screen.
It goes bigger on almost every aspect than it has before, and it's once again a mixed bag. Some of the action scenes are so, so ridiculous, especially a scene during the big finale that involves Ludacris and Tyrese Gibson (no spoilers here), but these moments are bogged down by a whole lot of nothing, providing an unnecessarily padded out runtime that makes the movie feel like a drag on more than one occasion. It overestimates how much the audience actually cares about the characters. But not to worry, at one point Vin Diesel downs a plane by throwing a truck at it, so you know, swings and roundabouts.
There's a whole heap of nonsense absolutely caking what is an enjoyable enough Fast & Furious movie. Nowhere near the best in the series, but a fun time if you can stay awake until the final third.
LoganCrews (2861 KP) rated Pan's Labyrinth (2006) in Movies
Sep 20, 2020
Even though this isn't that good, the resounding acclaim still makes sense to me because this is pretty much exactly what normies would have wanted out of this movie - to a T. The grand, moving mythic-fantasy spectacle this could have been takes a backseat to like only 4 full-fledged fantasy scenes swept under the suffocating carpet of yet another trite war drama. I realize this is deeply personal to Del Toro, and I'm not trying to invalidate that - but I think somewhere in his love for the project he forgot to add actual... depth to the thing because to him, just this film existing was enough? Don't get me wrong, it's still fine as it is - when it actually decides to be a fantasy film instead of a generic parable for self sacrifice (yawn, plus hot damn the ending is shitty *and* problematic) I think this looks great even though it's color-coded like a sickly Eiffel 65 music video for some reason. Moment to moment this is okay, some scenes work more than others. But ultimately it boils down to another batch of empty cyphers and caricature villains in the orbit of a boring heroine from Del Toro - who seems to specialize in that. A mishmash of unsubtle things he thinks have nuance but don't, though worth it for the practical effects alone.
Police Chase: Drag Racing
Games
App
Welcome to the right side of the law. In this adrenaline-pumping, ultra-fast racer you’ll act as a...
Matthew Krueger (10051 KP) rated Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) in Movies
May 6, 2020
Snakes! Why Did It Have To Be Snakes?
Raiders of the Lost Ark- started the Indiana Jones franchise, off with a bang. Lots of action, adventure, wips and gun fights. Classic sences like.. The Boulder chase, sword vs gun, face melting, taking the lost ark and top secert.
The plot: Epic tale in which an intrepid archaeologist tries to beat a band of Nazis to a unique religious relic which is central to their plans for world domination. Battling against a snake phobia and a vengeful ex-girlfriend, Indiana Jones is in constant peril, making hair's-breadth escapes at every turn in this celebration of the innocent adventure movies of an earlier era.
The film was subsequently nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture, in 1982 and won four (Best Sound, Best Film Editing, Best Visual Effects, and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (Norman Reynolds, Leslie Dilley, and Michael D. Ford)).
American Film Institute
AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies—No. 60
AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills—No. 10
AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains:
Indiana Jones—No. 2 Hero
AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes:
"Snakes! Why did it have to be snakes?"—Nominated
AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores—Nominated
AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition)—No. 66
Its a classic action-adventure film.
The plot: Epic tale in which an intrepid archaeologist tries to beat a band of Nazis to a unique religious relic which is central to their plans for world domination. Battling against a snake phobia and a vengeful ex-girlfriend, Indiana Jones is in constant peril, making hair's-breadth escapes at every turn in this celebration of the innocent adventure movies of an earlier era.
The film was subsequently nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture, in 1982 and won four (Best Sound, Best Film Editing, Best Visual Effects, and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (Norman Reynolds, Leslie Dilley, and Michael D. Ford)).
American Film Institute
AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies—No. 60
AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills—No. 10
AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains:
Indiana Jones—No. 2 Hero
AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes:
"Snakes! Why did it have to be snakes?"—Nominated
AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores—Nominated
AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition)—No. 66
Its a classic action-adventure film.
Invincible, Vol 1: Family Matters
Robert Kirkman and Cory Walker (Art)
7.7
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Book
Mark Grayson is just like most everyone else his age. He's a senior at a normal American high...
A Dangerous Life (DCI Jack Callum #2)
Book
A tortured body is found hanging from a tree DCI Jack Cullum leads the investigation into this...
Historical Crime Fiction
The Man Who Played with Fire: Stieg Larsson's Lost Files and the Hunt for an Assassin
Jan Stocklassa and Tara F Chace (Translator)
3.0
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Book
The author of the Millennium novels laid out the clues. Now a journalist is following them. When...