Pokémon Go

 

Global hype can be utterly insane. Recently having been labeled as the most downloadable and most profitable app on mobile phones in the industry, Pokémon Go made the headlines and will surely be remembered for several reasons.

First, it gave people a great social reason to go outdoors, look around, catch Pokémon and stop at special spots where you might learn interesting trivia and visual standouts.

Second, the brand/IP co-owned by Game Freak and Nintendo has easily helped this mobile app gain global popularity, and although the developer Niantic published Ingress previously, Pokémon Go is by leaps and bounds more recognized.

Third, keeping in mind that the update where you will be able to trade the pocket monsters is likely on the way, in the mean time, people battling against each other acting like fictional trainers is what keeps the fans coming back towards this madness.

However, because of the massive popularity, the product has also spotted various incidents around the world, such as crazy people playing the mobile app while driving on the highway, or Japanese teenagers walking around the radioactive site of Fukushima in order to progress, and many more crazy events.

Situations like going with a very large group of people around "hot zones" of Pokéspots such as urban cities, beaches and graveyards, but also when speaking of the fact that the fans are constantly glued to their screens while not minding their surroundings has created hilarious, bizarre and dangerous happenings.

And on a minor less relevant note, the mobile app simply cannot compare gameplay wise to the main series of handheld duo released games. Pokémon Go could be called a lite edition, but when one looks at the social aspect, it's easily overwhelming.

This unexpected and incredible historical event just might be the only push that Nintendo and her 2nd parties needed in order to get really comfortable with mobile releases in the future, while of course separating the gaming experiences through the handheld and console markets.

Gamescom Report

Instead of visiting a gaming convention in The Netherlands, this time me and my brother drove to Cologne in order to enter Gamescom, which is the equivalent of Electronic Entertainment Expo, but then in Europe.

Featuring the latest upcoming video games as the central theme, including Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the place was enormously busy, even on a sunday.

The queues were ridiculously long and similar to rollercoaster times, so we simply skipped checking out of the new stuff and we walked through the several halls of gaming booths and such instead. The mood was like any gaming convention, alive and busy, with shops, booths, demo's and esports doing their thing to entertain.

The various Virtual Reality devices also made their presence, but because of the queue's, none were touched by us. Instead, we will await the reviews and look at the objective consensus before we decide on 1 of them.

Next to the gaming, there were food stalls, a PC hall focusing on electronics supplementary towards computer games, and cosplay village, where it nowadays is normal to hold a competition at conventions like these and others like comics or horror related.

Gamescom in overall was an average at best convention for us, and frankly, we could had sticked with a Dutch convention for this year. Still, it's nice to see and try something different, and now it's time to game again!

Uncharted 4: A Thief's End

Let’s go on an ancient treasure hunt, one more time.

Nathan Drake is dragged into his last big adventure because his brother Samuel Drake has a huge debt to pay towards getting out of prison. The third person gameplay returns polished with beautiful stunning graphics, gunplay and corners, climbing platforming and the marvelous dialogue between the characters.

Newcomers in the cast are fun with Sam sticking out the most, while Victor and Elena also return as fan favorites. This time, the adventure brings us in flashbacks to Panama, and in present time to Italy, Scotland and the wonderful Madagascar.

Uncharted 4 features robust multiplayer madness online, is filled with secret treasures and the dialogue remains humane, humoristic and touching. Climbing around remains a great balance towards the shootouts against another private army.

Filling up the challenge with several brutal difficulties, adding in a photo capture and of course the silly cheats are returning, Naughty Dog has once again delivered like the respectful developer they are for Sony's platforms.

A Thief’s End says it all in the subtitle and it’s a fitting end to the Uncharted franchise, although it can also be considered an open ending, especially seeming as singleplayer DLC is on the way. It’s easily another very strong entry, but Among Thieves remains king objectively.

Rating: 8.7

Star Fox Zero

 

Re-imagination or remake of Star Fox 64, which is the crème de la crème of the franchise. Star Fox Zero brings gyro controls and a second screen from the cockpit towards the table, and a new machine lets you run and hover distances, aside from the Landmaster and the Arwing.

There’s also a mini R.O.B. which is able to hack computers, the graphics are 60 frames per second and it is co-developed by Platinum Games. The campaign lets you do various routes upon replay, and it features some hidden secrets as you collect special items, or move in particular ways.

It's odd to experience this game quite late in the Wii U's library, as the presentation could be better for instance. Super Mario Maker, Xenoblade Chronicles X and Splatoon are frankly more pleasurable to play, and feature obviously more content wise.

Also, the controls take a while to get used to, similar to Kid Icarus Uprising. Assets wise, it definitely ain't original, but it's familiar. I understand that this is a decent pick up and play kind of game, but at times it just feels underwhelming.

Star Fox Zero is pretty good, but merely a shadow of Star Fox 64 or even it’s 3D incarnation, simply because that game did everything better and it was more original.

Rating: 7.8

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.