Mighty No. 9

 

A fast paced side scrolling action, a combination of Mega Man Classic and X gameplay, endless dashes, no wall jumping and glimpses of Network Transmission make Mighty No. 9 a solid spiritual successor as a product.

But the drama surrounding the development time, the kickstarting, the controversies and the promoting make it infamous. Play as Beck, who can assimilate boss weapons and dash through enemies as a finishing move, which is different.

The soundtrack is good as it is composed by veteran Manami Matsumae, but the biggest dissapointments are Comcept's way too ambitious goals during Mighty No. 9's development time, resulting into failed expectations.

Although I don't mind the graphics, they definitely could had put some more effort into it. There's enough challenge and variety during level, enemy and boss designs, but all of the kickstarter goals combined make the experience clouded by content.

Mighty No.9 is a sad example of poor management and prioritizing goals and deadlines. I only hope that Comcept and Keiji Inafune will have learned their lesson from this and won't go with the same strategy again for Red Ash: The Indelible Legend.

Rating: 7.4

Japan

Never before have I traveled so much with trains, in this case Shinkansens, as during visiting one of the most fascinating countries in the world if you ask me; Japan, which blends old with new culture, is rich, a forerunner with technology and has beautiful nature landscapes.

Because we have seen countless of landmarks, monuments and sightseeings, not everything will be mentioned, even by specific names, and not even everything will be chronologically told for convenience sake from my own end.

Arriving at Fukuoka by ferry boat from Busan, we checked in at our first of many hostels(and some Airbnb rooms) and started exploring the city which was plagued at first with heavy rain. Having found a terrific sushi spot and having eaten ramen noodles already, our bellies were already satisfied.

We visited Kagoshima in the south west next, which is famous for a nearby active volcano. Unfortunately the rain had not stopped here either yet, and because of misty clouds we were unable to actually see the volcano, but we're still glad to have taken this trip, and we spoiled ourselves with one of several hot springs we would undertake.

The next day, we visited Nagasaki, the second city to have been damaged by a nuclear bomb. Exploring the museum dedicated towards this tragic event, we later checked historical Dutch events which took place here, such as the Dutch being the only ones from the West which did trade with the Japanese for 200 years.

We also saw the skyview in the afternoon from the city, which was huge, and on the other side, we saw that infamous artificial island where workers used to densely live and work together, but now it was abandoned, and unfortunately, we missed the boat towards seeing it with just 5 minutes.

Having been impressed by the history of Nagasaki already, Hiroshima would be the obvious next city to experience, which not only has a beautiful island named Miyajima with the famous gate semi under water and buddhism temples, but it's also the first city where a nuclear bomb was dropped, with nightmaristic consequences.

Having absorbed the historical and memorial artifacts laying around, we would stay at Fukuoka one more time before briefly traveling to Osaka to visit the famous aquarium there, which was huge, entertaining and I was able to touch sting rays.

But because our longest trip was underway, we had to continue, and so we stayed for 1 night at Sendai, another city affected, this time by a tsunami in the past, and we had a terrific night because we made Japanese friends and they bought us dinner and Sake for basically just our foreign friendship!

After experiencing the beautiful island of Matsushima, next up was Sapporo, the city in the north, which is normally famous for it's winter resorts and such, but because we went in may, the temperature was just fine. Sapporo is actually designed with American contributions, a fact I did not  know until my buddy told me.

Wakkanai, the town all the way in the north at the end of Hokkaido, was also visited by us, where we were able to see the Russian island Sakhalin just barely. It was also visited mainly because of geographical reasons.

Having seen some Sapporo highlights such as the clock tower and the parks, we undertook our second longest train journey, where we would briefly stop at the somewhat obscure Utsunomiya before we would visit the ancient city of Nikko.

This was another rainfall day, but the experience of this city would not be shattered, but perhaps rather enhanced as we saw impressive buddhism sites, and also stuff like pagoda's and maosoleums. Afterwards, we would finally arrive at Kyoto.

It's impossible to see everything Kyoto has to offer even in the 3 week we were visiting Japan, so instead of that, we would go for the highlights, such as the golden pavilion, a building housing hundreds of Budhha statues, the bamboo forest and a site housing the largest gate of the country.

As a personal highlight, I have also seen Nintendo's headquarters for real, which made me tingle from the inside and gave me goosebumps because I am a lifelong fan of the "magic" they have produced for decades, or centuries if you want to get technical.

The old capital of Nara was also visited by us, housing more amazing Buddha temples, crowded Japanese and tourists, a skyview of the city and so on. We needed 2 days to fully explore all of the highlights here, which also goes for Kyoto by the way.

We returned to Osaka to experience it's castle and the city itself, and in the evening we visited the famous skyview of Kobe after riding the cable car to the mountain. Being unable to visit the hot spring nearby, we instead filled our stomachs at an all you can eat Shabu Shabu restaurant, which was marvelous.

Himeji houses the most famous castle of Japan, which miraculously never was affected by natural disasters or World War II. A zoo was opening up nearby granting us and the Japanese families free access, so we took it!

Okayama was visited for it's black alter ego castle towards Himeji's, and it also had one of the top 3 most beautiful gardens of the country, which we of course walked. We saw numerous Japanese gardens in Kyoto itself as well, but they were more separate and generalistic than the one at Okayama.

Finally, our Shinkansen would take us to Tokyo, the biggest capital of the current world, where we would mainly experience 2 out of 20+ districts. Shinjuku is known as the shopping district, whereas Akihabara, also known as electronic town, would become our favorite.

It's known for being a paradise towards fans of video games, electronics, anime/manga and fandom in general, where all of these mediums would glide together in a district which is filled with "maid cafes", otaku's and it even has sex shops subtly located.

Speaking of which, I myself would also personally visit Kabukicho, AKA the red light district of Tokyo, which apparently also is the largest of Asia. I surprisingly saw a large Toho building there, which produces the Godzilla/Gojira movies, while inbetween I would be relaxing from all of the walking in these 4 weeks, so to speak.

A detour would follow towards Kanazawa, which is slowly getting discovered by tourists for being noticable for having an actual Ninja Temple full of traps and hidden doors, and an authentic samurai district as well, plus another beautiful garden.

Anyway, I bought the legendary Famicom system with 12 exclusive games in Akihabara, and I will connect it at home in the nearby future and offer my review. We also went to Japan's holy mountain Mt.Fuji, which has inspired countless people of it's natural beauty.

My buddy insisted on visiting the theme park Fuji Q Highland there, where my former fear of roller coasters would be tested, after having surpassed it already last year at De Efteling. Intimidating rollercoasters like Eijanaika were very intense, but in the end I enjoyed the thrills!

We settled for Tokyo's districts in our final days, checking out the Tokyo Tower and the Japanese people in general in their busy lives, and before we knew it, our journey had ended. What a trip, I have seen over 20+ cities!

Japan is a unique country in culture, etiquette and tradition with delicous amounts of food & beverages, friendly people, almost no crime rates and a frontrunner in science and technology, including robotics. If given the opportunity and the right reason, I would have no trouble to return to this irreplacable island!

South Korea

After keeping vacation to a minimum last year, it was time for another big adventure in 2016.

The history of the Koreans has been troublesome, complex and intriguing over the past century and before. Known to have been invaded numerous times, nowadays, they still have to settle with themselves when one looks up to the north, who remember their enemies.

Traveling with a buddy of mine for a month in Asia, this has been the longest time I have traveled with someone else, and we were able to discuss and figure out our destinations smoothly, with only very few exceptions as to what we wanted to see conflicting with time, accessibility and motivation.

Landing at Incheon airport, we went by bus to the capital Seoul, and marveled at the city's historic sites merging with it's modern skyscrapers and people who are forerunners of technology like Samsung's phone industry.

Unable to go for the border because of unexpected military drills happening, we focused on the memorial war museum as alternative instead, where interesting articles, objects and such immersed us into the so called Forgotten War.

The city of Gyeongju in the south, known for it's open environment of ancient sites, was pleasant to experience because of the many people walking around there. From museums to a very old observatory to king tombs lying under giant grass hills, it is nicknamed as Korea's Kyoto by some.

We had a terrific night here at the hostel where the owner, his assistant, an American and South Korean roommate and some random girl joined with us together to drink soju, Makgeolli and eat royally until the deep night.

We also hiked a mountain with the American, which I am glad to have done so, as the nature was pretty to walk through. Arriving at the port town of Busan in the end of the week, which is South Korea's 2nd largest city, me, my buddy and the American walked through the famous fish market there and we oozed with intrigue there.

Finally, after hiking the east coast and finding the famous bridge, the next day, we said goodbye to South Korea and embarked on a short trip with a ferry boat to the main event of our 2016 journey; the Land of the Rising Sun.