Blackfire: The Charrim Fighting Tournament

Setting: Charrim tournament ring. Ranter stands on top of Mega Sumo in the middle of the ring. Ranter stares down at Mega Sumo, smirking arrogantly, as Mega Sumo flails his legs while trying to push himself out of the hole his head is stuck in. Thomas and Hercule chuckle while watching on the sidelines while the rest of the fighters, as well as the audience, stare in awe.

Mega Sumo - Get off of me you little bastard!

Ranter - Push me off, faggot. You've got those big, chubby arms, you can do it!

MS - I'll get you for this!

R - Say something less predictable of a whiny loser like yourself, and I'll help you out. Maybe apologize?

MS - I have nothing to apologize for!

R - You should apologize for being so Goddamn fat. Honestly, I don't think anyone on Gyronia is as Goddamn fat as you are, even on purpose.

MS - Fuck you!

Announcer - (Over PA system) I think it's safe to say that Ranter Blackfire is the winner folks! Ranter Blackfire, please help Mega Sumo out of the hole you put him in and lead him out of the ring, and make way for Hercule and Germaine!

R - Aw, fuck. Alright, Mega Fatso, let's go.

Ranter steps off of Mega Sumo, grabs him by the ankles, and rips him out of the stone-tiled floor. Mega Sumo grunts as pieces of tile break off against his head. Ranter tosses Mega Sumo out of the ring with ease, and he lands on the ground with a hard thud. Ranter then exits the ring and stands with Thomas.

Thomas - That was fun to watch. You should have dragged it out a little more, though.

R - I couldn't be bothered. It was like fighting with an unbreakable water balloon until his head broke the floor.

Ranter and Thomas watched as Hercule and another man approached the ring. The pieces of tile broken from the hole in the ring melted and merged with the tile, and the floor repaired itself.

T - That's pretty neat.

R - Yeah. Do they have an alchemist on site, or does it do that by itself?

King Shorma - They have an alchemist on site, stupid. They can't make it do that by itself.

R - Holy shit, dude, are you for real? Nice crown and cape setup, Fuzzypants. You must be King Shorma, the stupidest name in the house.

KS - Who do you think you are? I'll have you know-

T - I'm gonna stop you there, Shorma, it's not gonna do you any good. I'm Thomas, and this is Ranter. I'm your first opponent.

KS - Oh, I see. Are you two twins? Brothers, at least?

T - No, we're just genetically identical.

(Pause)

R - Man, I love the reactions we get from that.

A - Hercule is the winner of his first match! And what an exciting match it was!

R - Aw, for fuck's sake, you made me miss the match, you stupid shit.

T - Looks like we're up, Shorma.

KS - That's King Shorma to you, Thomas.

Thomas and King Shorma walked onto the ring, passing Hercule dragging a broken man by the collar of his jumpsuit.

H - I didn't kill him. He won't ever be the same again, though.

R - Son of a bitch, I missed the whole thing because of Kingaling and his fake British accent.

H - British?

R - It's an Earth thing, you wouldn't understand.

H - Hey, I can understand Earth things. It's not like it's a whole other planet or something.

R - Suit yourself, but you're going to have to do your own research.

H - Yeah well, whatever, I've gotta deal with this guy's family now that he may never walk again, so I don't have time for any fancy research.

R - Suit yourself some more, then.

Hercule walked to the edge of the audience where a woman was crying, and a man in a white robe holding a staff stood. The man began casting magic on the broken fighter to heal his wounds.

R - (shouting) Hey, you know if he can't even beat Hercule in a fight, you might as well bury the guy now, he's hopeless!

H - Hey, shut up!

Ranter cackled at them, while the woman wailed. Ranter then looked up at the ring to see Shorma King flailing around the ring, completely engulfed in flame. Thomas put his hands out, palms facing the Shorma King, and a blast of wind flew forward at him. The flames were doused, and the Shorma King flew out of the ring, his furry cape completely burned up and his crown half-melted. Thomas walked off the ring to meet Ranter.

R - What the hell? I missed the fight again. And you told me to drag it out longer.

T - Dude, I seriously didn't touch the guy. His costume burst into flames before I could clench a fist, I can't even describe it. One minute he was running at me, and then, boom, he's in flames.

R - I'd have to say friction burn.

T - Are you gonna watch the next fight?

R - This is the only fight I wanted to skip. It'll probably be long and boring. You don't happen to be hungry, do you?

T - I haven't been hungry in days. Might as well get something to eat before the next fight, I guess.

R - Sounds good, let's go rob some orphans.

T - I think I'm in the mood for a burger.

R - Okay well let's go buy a burger then. Orphans can't afford burgers.

T - I think you're thinking of homeless people.

R - I heard that homeless people make around $40,000 a year in Canada from begging alone. I think they can afford a burger every now and then.

T - I'd say check your sources, but whatever, let's go to some generic burger joint then.

• • • • •

H - You guys done dicking around? The semifinals are about to start.

R - Alright, Hercule. We're up, I guess.

H - Hell yeah, I've been waiting for this all day.

A - Fighters, ready yourselves! The semifinals are now underway! Ranter and Hercule, please step into the ring!

Ranter and Hercule face off in the ring. As they begin fighting, a flurry of high speed punches and kicks fly in every direction. Energy radiates from them as they fly above the ring, clashing forearms and shins. Shock-waves emit all throughout the sky. Before long, Hercule comes crashing down into the ring on his back, and is shortly after met by a hard-hitting energy blast, causing shards of tile to fly into the air. Ranter rockets down from the sky and lands dead-center on Hercule's rib-cage with one foot. Hercule cried out, and the crowd fell dead silent.

A - ... It looks like the winner of this exciting battle is Ranter Blackfire!

The crowd erupts with cheer. Ranter steps off Hercule, holds out his hand, and helps him up.

R - That was a good fight, Hercule.

H - Looks like I've still got some work to do. Next time I see you, though, I'm getting a rematch, tournament or not.

R - Keep whining, whiny. You're such a whiny whiner, Mr. Whiny Whiner Whiney Whine.

T - Yo Rex, we're up. Get Hercule outta there.

R - Sure, we'll get out of your way. Come on, Mr. Whiney Whi- Oh, he's gone already.

T - No, I mean you and I fight next. The other two guys are both out.

R - What? How?

T - I like to imagine they punched each other in the face at the same time and knocked each other out, but I can't get any answers from anyone. It's too bad we went to get burgers otherwise we might have seen what happened.

R - Weak. Alright, well let's get on with it then.

A - Get ready, folks! This is the last fight of the night! Ranter Blackfire will face off against Thomas Blackfire!

T - Should we go ahead and call it a draw in advance, or should we give this audience a show?

R - We've got to give them a show. The fights today haven't been any good, or at least the ones I've seen.

T - You mean none of them?

R - Right, none of them. None of them have been any good.

T - That's not what I-

A - Let the match begin!

T - Fuck it, let's go.

Ranter and Thomas burst towards each other in an explosion of energy. At just barely watchable speeds, Ranter and Thomas threw and dodged hundreds of each other's attacks. Energy blasts as big as the arena lit up the sky like fireworks. Ranter and Thomas held up for twenty minutes, and then landed. They faced each other in fighting stances at opposite ends of the ring. With another burst of energy, they both dashed forward with a punch. Their fists collided, and a pillar of fire blasted up from below the ring for several seconds and vanished. What was left was a crater where the ring once was, and Ranter and Thomas had both sneaked away in the explosion, leaving the cheering crowd behind.

Blackfire: Prologue

Setting: Outside of Lab Entrance, middle of the desert flats. Ranter and Thomas stand outside the door of the tower, waiting for Zinc to come out. Zinc walks out of the lab's only entrance, holding some papers.

Zinc - Hey guys, I've got some scripts for the episodes we're going to run.

Ranter - What? Scripts? What the fuck is this?

Thomas - They're the scripts for the new story, since the last one crashed.

R - What story? What the fuck, we don't read scripts for this shit. Get those papers out of here.

Z - Ranter, Don't you remember the last story? With all the non-canon and the badly formatted chapters that only made it to chapter 3 despite there being 6 chapters or so?

R - No, that didn't happen, shut up. We're not doing a fucking play or a movie or a skit or some shit. If there are cameras following us around, I swear to God I will burrow into the center of this fucking planet and explode.

T - There aren't any cameras, calm down. Jesus Christ.

R - Am I the only one with any logic of originality here at least? First of all, stories about stories being made fucking suck under any context except for awful hallucinations, and even then only sometimes do they not suck completely. Secondly-

Z - It doesn't feel like this is the real problem here.

R - The problem here is that we, as fucking fiction, don't resort to making more fiction as the story. If there's going to be a fucking story about fiction, the fictional characters do not make a fucking script.

(pause)

Z - So are-

R - No, shut the fuck up, give me those papers. (Ranter takes the papers from Zinc, and they burn up in Ranter's hands.)

Z - Jesus Christ, Ranter.

T - You know, I actually agree with him on this one, Zinc.

R - We're not doing a story. We're not doing a story about a story, and we're not doing a story, shut up. I can't believe this is what we were waiting around here for.

T - Hey Zinc, we've gotta get outta here, there's a fight in Charrim City we're missing.

Z - Alright, I've got other things to work on. You guys go ahead.

R - Cool, let's go, Tom. Seeya, Zinc.

Ranter and Thomas run across the desert in a flash, and quickly arrive at the outskirts of a city of tall buildings and crowded streets. They navigate their way through the city and find an opening; a circular arena, surrounded by a crowd of anxious fans. Inside the ring were six men warming up separately.

R - (entering the ring) Hey guys, sorry we're late. I see you didn't start without us.

One of the men in the ring approaches Ranter.

Hercule - You aren't as late as you think, man. Fights aren't picked for another ten minutes.

T - Well, I hardly think we need a warm up. I think I'll just float around until they draw names. (Thomas levitates off the ground and begins floating nonchalantly around the ring)

R - So, Hercule, are you gonna rig the fight order to make sure we fight together?

H - Hell no, these guys aren't worth it. I could take them all at once. Even if I have to wait till the semifinals to fight you or Tom, I can pull my own shit 'till then.

R - Sounds good. You'll still lose though.

H - Fuck off, you maggot.

Announcer - (Over PA system) Welcome, fighters. Please direct your attention to my voice!

R - Jesus Christ, that was ten minutes? We must have been talking in slow-mo or something, fuck.

A - All entrants have been accounted for, and we will begin drawing names to determine the order of the matches.

A set of empty tournament brackets show up on the scoreboard mounted on the wall of a building.

A - The following matches have been chosen at random. For the first match, Ranter Blackfire will be facing Mega Sumo!

R - Seriously? Mega Sumo? What the fuck kind of name is that? Who comes up with this shit?

A - The second match will be Hercule versus Germaine!

R - Why didn't they shout your last name? Or the other guy's last name?

H - "Hercule" is my stage name. I prefer anonymity.

A - The third match will have Thomas Blackfire facing off against the Shorma King!

R - Come to think of it, I don't know what your last name is.

H - and I prefer to keep it that way. I like to keep my enemies at bay.

R - Alright, calm down, shithead. Did they announce the last match yet?

H - Yeah, they did. You weren't listening?

R - I guess not. It isn't really all that important to me, I don't know who the other guys are. There's no sense in filling up my memory with names that don't matter.

A - Fighters, please clear out for the first match. Ranter, Mega Sumo, please take to the ring!

All the fighters but Ranter and Mega Sumo clear the ring. Ranter and a very large, tan man wearing a skin tight suit stand across from each other in the ring.

Mega Sumo - Hahaha! You are my opponent! You are so small!

R - Fuck, it's one of these "big" guys who can't get enough of themselves and their atrocious obesity. Alright, fatass, let's go!

A - Let the match begin!

The Evolutionary Impossibilities of Namekians

Understanding the Dragon Ball series is a task in itself. Every new villain is impossibly more powerful than the last, and it couldn't be easier for a select few characters to accelerate to their level. There are species among species of humanoid characters that are strangely colored, slightly deformed, or otherwise. There are saiyans who are only slightly more realistic than Superman, androids with infinite energy source, and a pink blob of goo that proves to be a universal terrorist. None of this is really put into perspective other than "EXTREMELY POWERFULLLL," but then there are the namekians who are explained, but just not quite enough. If you are going to think about this realistically, namekians don't exist. Oh goodnesss, it's fiction, wah wah wah, someone just made it up, wah wah wah. But to push away the idea of fiction,too many things about namekians are explained in canon, and I am going to tell you why outside of the fiction world, they just can't exist.

To begin, let's take a look at Planet Namek, where the sky is green and the grass is blue. The namekians are nearly the only species on this planet other than plants and some fish. There are trees, grass, flowers and fish. And namekians who just don't really fit into the equation. Maybe insects, too. There are very few foresty areas as most places tend to be open fields with occasional trees and large ponds. The namekian villages tend to be near the big ponds, because that's where they get their food. No, they don't eat fish, they just drink water. They drink fucking water.

Please look at the above picture. The green guy is a namekian, specifically Piccolo if you're seriously reading this and knowing nothing about Dragon Ball. He looks just like a human, except horrible and green. He's got the potential for huge, bulky arms and legs and whatever. He's already got sort of muscly arms, but why? He lives on water alone. Now, according to Toriyama in the Super Exciting Guide, whatever the hell that is, namekians only drink water because their bodies have enzymes that allow them to transform water into nutrients. Basically, that's black magic at work, which I'm going to ignore as black magic since the word "enzymes" was used to sound sciency and that's total bullshit. If humans got hold of a namekian, said namekian would begin to get dissected in all sorts of ways to get that enzyme out of him so WE could live on water. Then global warming is solved because who gives a shit about other animals if we can live on water, right? Well, that's elsewhere.

But since namekians have a legitimate reason *snicker* to be able to live on water alone, why do they look like this?

See the dark, intimidating look in his eyes? Well, that's irrelevant, because this is just piccolo again and he's kind of a hard-ass. But what about the huge canine teeth or the fingernails that sprout like claws? I'm not going to say anything about the super energy powers since way too many people seem to be able to do that anyway, but with that and the ability to bulk up, what's the point? Namekians have no natural predators, and their only prey is fucking water so why did they evolve to look like monsters? Why do they even have teeth at all? The only legitimate reason I could come up with for a species such as this is for mating rituals. Oh, but guess what? Namekians are hermaphrodites. They don't breed with each other, they spit up eggs. Like, out of their mouths. Ugh. So being intimidating is useless. But not all namekians are intimidating!

There are actually different classifications of namekians, and they are defined most specifically when a dragonball mmo was created. There are the warrior clan and the dragon clan, each with different abilities. There is also no racism on Namek, so no one cares very much, probably. The warriors are stronger than the rest and have vast fighting abilities and why do they have fighting abilities when there is nothing they need to fight!? The dragon clan members are the white mages of the namekians and have healing abilities for some reason. Why do they have healing abilities? Who is getting so frequently wounded in this predatorless world that magic healing powers must be practiced!? The dragon clan members are a lot more realistic than the warriors considering the non-violent nature of namekians. And yet there are still so many unanswered questions.

So, why do they have antennae? Well apparently, for absolutely no reason. Maybe just to look more identifiable as not entirely human. Not once, for a single instant, are a namekian's antennae used for anything at all. In fact, piccolo wears a turban more often than not, and it covers his antennae completely. Why, evolution? Why? Namekians speak a language, can see, hear, smell, taste and feel! Why do they need antennae? Also, on a side note, why can namekians get fat?

Look at the beer gut on this magnificent bastard.

The big guy there is Guru. After a horrible wind storm that killed literally the entire species except for him, he gave birth to every single namekian who existed during Dragon Ball Z excluding Kami and Picollo. He dies of old age eventually, being apprently over 500 years old. And before that, he is incredibly huge, and incredibly fat. Just look at him, there's no arguing it. The only thing to justify it is that some namekians seem to get fattish looking in old age, but this is ridiculous. And not all of them do it, because Kami is a typical old man despite being horrible and green. Guru is of the dragon clan, since he created the dragon balls (something else only dragon clan members can do) and so is Kami, since Kami created Earth's dragon balls, so it's not just a clan thing, certainly. So, that raises the question: why are there different body types!? Not only does everyone eat the same thing (fucking water) but if it was a genetic thing, than everyone on Namek should be getting fat with age! Kami isn't the only old skinny namekian around. Most of the old namekians are skinny like Kami. And even moreso, why is Guru so huge? It isn't consistant with the rest of the namekians, as all the other old namekians are short or approximately the same size as the other adult namekians. Guru looks like, if he wasn't so horribly weak, he could accidentally breathe in too hard and cause a minor drought.

I've read somewhere that some fans think that namekians use photosynthesis, and back it up with the fact that they only drink water and they are green and their planet has three suns. I'm going to go ahead and destroy that argument with scientific proof. Firstly, namekians are not plants, and only plants can use photosynthesis. Forget that they are aliens, because we have billions of different species that are completely different from each other and Namek is extremely similar to Earth. It even has similar gravity. There is one known species on Earth that has both animal and plant cells, and it's some sort of green sea slug. Hey, namekians are sort of slugs, right? Well, no, not at all. Besides, the slug that has both of these cells still looks like a fucking leaf. Namekians don't look like fucking leaves.

Hey there Picco- oh, sorry, I got the wrong guy.

Just as well, plants don't bleed, and plants don't have enzymes to change water into nutrients to create fucking teeth and claws and muscle tissue and they certainly can't do this:

The word you are looking for is AAUUGGHH!

That's instant regeneration, more black magic at work. That's sort of like how some lizards grow back their tail, right? Except faster? Maybe they're green less because they're like plants, and more because they're like lizards? I would like to apologize for the fans to all green lizards and amphibians who have been inadvertently compared to plants. But anyway, back to the regeneration thing. Why can namekians do that!? This is another example of super powers that just aren't necessary in a world without predators.

I think that about covers it. Namekians just don't make any sense. Please note that I left out a lot of super powers on purpose because Dragon Ball is fucking ridiculous. In closing, I think that namekians as a species, despite having no reason to toughen up, no reason to be intelligent at all, being able to live out in the open right next to water, the only thing they need to live, completely carefree, they made out pretty fucking fantastic.

KingRanter

What happened to the Rant?

I'd like to point out my negligence to post again. Obviously I'm not obligated to post, so I'm not going to make excuses. I'm just not that into it these days. But I've begun to have a slow-working revelation that I would like to share. I might finally be crawling out of my rut.

I know that lately I haven't posted much, and not about much. That's because I haven't felt like doing anything. And I haven't really been doing anything at all other than playing video games. Well, I won't be buying any new games any time soon (except for some Nintendo 3DS stuff when that comes out), because I have a long lineup of games that need to be played first.

The reason I've been stuck in this rut is unclear. Lately, I've been speaking to a few friends, I've been doing some reflecting. I don't like who I am, and I'm trying to change. I haven't done anything drastic, and I haven't changed my pattern or my personality, so it doesn't seem like anything's changed. But it has, because I see what I need to fix. It's just becoming a matter of fixing it, and I can't guarantee I won't need a little help with that.

I'm evolving into a stronger me. I've re-expanded my music library, for one, which is already giving me a different outlook. I've made some decisions about my future, and I feel like I'm building self-discipline. God knows I can't make that judgement on my own, so I'll see where it takes me.

Another thing that's happened is that my will for a getting a girlfriend had dropped. I think I was just losing hope. However, as of late, I already feel like I'm closer to getting back on my horse again. Anything can happen, so I can only hope what happens will be good. It's been far too long for me, so I'll probably have to figure some of this stuff out all over again, but hey, I'm sure worse has happened to better.

I feel like in the recent past, I've really downgraded my personality and lost the comfortability I had. I'm going to try my best to get it back, because I know that's all I'll need to do to get back on my feet again, raring to go. Maybe I need to accomplish something big. Or even small. Or just something personal. Video game unrelated, of course. I'm smarter than that.

Blog related news: I'm not planning on posting anymore Blackfire stuff anymore. None. Reading back, I realized that the action-genre doesn't really belong in a book. So I'm disregarding that. I probably won't do another story, but if I do, expect absolutely no fight scenes, because they don't actually turn out very well. Thank you for your time.

KingRanter

Perspective of Ranter

I'm going to upload some pictures of Ranter.

Now, Ranter is obviously a fictional character raised by anime and vidyagames, so I'll be uploading graphics. I'm fucking horrible at graphic design, so I didn't do much work of this stuff myself, and it looks fucking awful for the most part, because I felt it necessary to get rid of the background on the program that did it for me, and I did a shitty job of it because I don't have the attention span to photoshop properly like the computer technology classes in high school taught me. Regardless, I went ahead over to a certain Anime Character Creator that I found on the intranets that I won't be linking because I can't be bothered to do that either. Seriously, I'm obviously not going places with this whole blogging thing, so why put fourth the effort? Regardless, I have 2 pictures of Ranter. He is standing in the exact same position in each picture, and I forgot to make the vital logo fix on his shirt that his shirt has in the first one because I forgot. Derp.

So, without further ado, I present to you, King Ranter Blackfire.

I forgot the logo on his shirt, like I said. He's a pretty simple character, and I had to work a little bit to get his eye color the right shade of dark grey. (I pressed random a couple times until I got the right non-standard color and then changed the eye type without changing the color, it was pretty straight-forward.) This is him in his standard form, his actual form, and he's not very hard to imagine. Chrono looks the same except his clothes are grey and his hair is brown. Thomas looks the same except his clothes are red except for the black stripes that go from the under part of his sleeves and down the sides of his shirt. The stripes also go down the sides of his pants, since it's sort of a uniform sort of thing. Also, Thomas' symbol is black. It's the same shape, even though I described it as different in the first chapter of the prototype book thing, but I changed my mind. Zinc does not look the same at all.

The second upcoming picture shows what Ranter looks like using the quills catalyst. Yes, it's exactly what it sounds like. It's one of his more useless catalysts, actually, but it allows for spinning in a ball more efficiently and using this technique as a weapon (because he can curl into a ball normally, because of a thing that happened, but this catalyst makes it easier, more efficient, and gives him some powers while in it.) So, without further ado, again, I'll show you a very similar picture of Ranter but with his quills catalyst spawned.

Don't mind the tallness of this image's canvas. I meant to fix it, I really did, but I can't be bothered. Anyways, as you can see, this picture is just Sonic the Hedgehog's middle quill in one image I pulled off the Sonic News Network, and I shooped it black and stuck it all over Ranter's back and head. That's basically what this is. I think this looks way more awesome, but for personal legitimacy reasons, I can't bring myself to make this a permanent change, so it stays as a catalyst. If I made it permanent, the Dragon Wings catalyst would be awkward to imagine, anything with a tail would be kind of weird, and he couldn't wear anything other than that suit which allows the catalysts to pass through it. Oh, also, this picture has the logo on it. And the shirt is usually more black than this.

I would seriously like to get a fucking artist in this bitch to help me with the pictures of Ranter and other characters. I'll make other characters here and there though, I have a challenge for the readers later on to help me with character development. Not that I have any readers.

KingRanter

Personal Insight: Sonic Colors

So, a few days ago, I completely finished the Wii version of Sonic Colors. I didn't go for all the S ranks or anything, although I did get a few along the way, I got all the red rings hidden throughout the levels and I grabbed all the Chaos Emeralds from the Sonic Simulator levels you unlock from collecting said rings. So, let me start from the beginning and work my way up to there.

Don't worry, we'll get to these in a minute.

So, here's the deal. Sonic Colors is a great game. There's the DS version, and the Wii version, and they vary pretty significantly, but the plot is (almost) exactly the same. I'm not going to outline it for you too much, but there ARE going to be spoilers, like usual.

Since there are a DS version and a Wii version, there are obviously going to be big changes in the gameplay as well as the whole execution of the game itself. The Wii is much more powerful than the DS, obviously, and is capable of much better graphics etc. etc. etc. That's sort of beside the point. The point is, the Wii version has a combination of behind-the-back gameplay and side scrolling, the DS version is entirely side scrolling. But that's not really fair to say, because the DS version has special stages that are behind the back. I'll get on those later, though.

I'm only trolling a little...

The Wii version is much, much longer than the DS version. By a marveling degree. Each zone in Sonic Colors for Wii has 6 acts and a boss, except for the very final zone that has an act and then a boss and then half an act. Sonic Colors for DS has 2 acts per zone, 3 optional challenge stages featuring other characters in the cutscenes made of pictures and text, and a boss. The optional challenges aren't really worth playing in my opinion, because while they are in fact, challenging, they aren't very rewarding. I've only played a few, because I can't be bothered. There are also 2 final bosses. However, there are just as many zones as in the Wii version, obviously, so the DS game is MUCH shorter. I beat the DS version with all the chaos emeralds and beat the final boss in 2 days, and with not much more than a few hours worth of playtime. I don't know the exact number, but it wasn't nearly as big as the Wii version's was (which was actually 99:59:59 because I left the Wii on for a couple of days).

The two versions had some different wisps than the others (the wisps being the aliens you are rescuing and get super powers from.) The Wii had 8, and the DS had 6. I'm not going to get into those, though. That would be completely ridiculous.

I don't have a lot to say about this game, I would highly suggest buying it on either (or both) systems. Or, at least, give them a play through. What I really wanted to get to was the red rings, and the incredible prize afterwards (supposedly).

First of all, I would like to tell the world that I cheated. I used YouTube videos uploaded to show how exactly to get all the red rings. But, hey, I never would have gotten them by myself. There are fucking 180 of them.

I didn't get them on the DS version. You get the Chaos Emeralds differently in the DS version, and I hear the red rings don't dish out a very good prize in the DS version. If it's infinite boost, then it's not necessary because you practically have infinite boost in most of the levels anyways because of all the boost you get throughout the game whilst boosting. I did get all of them in the Wii version, because you need them to get the Goddamn Chaos Emeralds.

Thank you God for these precious gifts.

In the DS version, each zone has a special stage. You play the special stage by completing an act in that zone with 50 or more rings at the end. Just like the classic games. In the special stages, you control Sonic with the Stylus along a tubular ramp of sorts, collecting colored orbs/balls/testicles, whatever you want to call them. You take 3 laps: On the first lap, you need to collect red orbs. If you touch any yellow or blue orbs, you swat them away. You shouldn't do this because you need to collect those orbs on the next 2 laps. If you touch a spike ball, which there are fairly few of, you lose some orbs. You need to collect a certain minimal amount to pass to the next lap, and when you complete 3 laps with enough orbs each time, you get a Chaos Emerald. If you don't, you lose the special stage and you have to play an act over again with 50 rings to try again. I found out that you can restart the special stage at any time, and that includes the moment you realize your about to reach the finish line and you don't have enough fucking orbs oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit. If you restart there, there's no penalty. It's so much easier to do that, but I only did that once, because after I did it once, I didn't have to do it again because the special stages here are fucking easy as pie compared to past special stages.

OH GOD WHY!?!?!?

After you get all the chaos emeralds, you get an extra final boss that you fight as Super Sonic.

In the Wii version, when you get all the red rings and unlock all the Sonic Simulator levels, you have to play through them. There are 7 zones and 3 acts each. That's as much gameplay as the DS version has alone. You get one Chaos Emerald every time you finish a zone, and when you have all seven Chaos Emerald, you can go into the options menu and turn on the option to use Super Sonic. That's exactly what it sounds like. In the 3D levels, for the first time in 3D console history, Super Sonic is available during any stage of the game.

Which, in hindsight, is pretty terrifying.

Ironically, you can't fight any bosses as Super Sonic in this game. You don't even get an extra bonus boss for Super Sonic. It's so weird. But regardless, Super Sonic is totally worth it. Right?

Not... really...

See, here's the deal. Super Sonic is awesome because he's lightning fast, completely invincible, and can burn through levels like they're made of cardboard. Usually. Super Sonic in Sonic Colors is about the same speed as Sonic. He reaches top speed a lot faster, and he has infinite boost, and that's the change in speed. Infinite boost is nice, especially when it's combined with invincibility, but it's impractical when his jumps lose precision and most levels are riddled with traps to obliterate you for running fast in a Sonic game. There are other problems in the system, too. Turning on Super Sonic in the options sort of disables you a little when you aren't Super Sonic.

First of all, lots of levels, especially the earlier ones, don't have an immediate 50 rings waiting for you at the start of the level. So, when that happens, it might take a while before you can transform in the level you want to transform in. Sometimes it's impossible because there aren't even 50 rings in the level. These things aren't usually a problem when getting 50 rings doesn't suddenly seem necessary, but there's usually a way to get lots of rings in levels anyways. That's with wisps. Wisps let you access lots of places you normally can't as Sonic, and those places frequently have rings to make it extra rewarding for getting there at all. But guess what? YOu can't use them. You know why? When you get the 50th ring, there's a symbol depicting the 7 Chaos Emeralds where the wisp's ability symbol normally would be. So, you can't have a wisp and be able to have the Super Sonic option at the same time. That's why the Super Sonic option can even be toggled. If you want Super Sonic, you can't use ANY wisps. In fact, there are some levels where wisps are necessary to finish the level, and they have to be altered slightly so you can return without having to use Super Sonic (in case you don't have the rings to transform) and without using wisps. So, there's a lack of rings, it's hard to get as much Super Sonic out of a level as you want. Basically, it's hardly worth the trouble. Most of my readers know me personally, so let me make this shout out: If you want to try out Super Sonic on Sonic Colors, I'll be happy to show you. Don't waste your time buying Sonic Colors and doing it yourself.

But seriously, buy Sonic Colors. It's awesome.

KingRanter

Personal Insight - Kirby's Epic Yarn

Sorry in advance for the enormous pictures in this post, high resolution is inconvenient and I can't be bothered to fix it right now.

So here's the thing. I liked Kirby's Epic Yarn. it had a LOT of problems compared to other Kirby games, though. Personally, I really wish they released an actual Kirby game that wasn't trying to be Little Big Planet. I have my reasons for it, too. Kirby games had a lot of qualities that were completely obliterated by this game, and it is absolutely necessary that they don't make another game and slap an unrelated franchise's name on it.

Kirby had a lot of defining qualities that other games didn't have, or couldn't have. It was unbelievably different from other games in the sense that nothing else could have pulled off what Kirby pulled off. So, let me list some original things that were ripped from the heart of Kirby when he entered the Yarn filled world of his Epic Yarn.

Abilities

This is the first thing that punches you in the face. Kirby is completely unable to inhale fuck all. Technically, if this was true, everyone living in the yarn world (I forget if it has a name) would suffocate to death. Obviously, Yarn doesn't have to breathe, so I SUPPOSE I can let that pass. The story implies that when Kirby tries to inhale, the air passes right through him. Physically, there would be no change in air direction regardless of what he did. Without lungs (or whatever the fuck Kirby used in the first place) there is no change in air pressure, and therefore no air rushing towards the low pressure area. Air shouldn't be passing through him at any enhanced rate at all.

Now, forgetting all that, let's stick to what he is left with. He can shoot a string of yarn and grab onto whatever to do whatever with. Depending on what he does with it, the yarn will do different things, usually pulling. Here's where shit gets weird

When you grab an enemy with your yarn, you do one of two things. If you hold the button, they turn into a ball of yarn. Simple enough. Then you hold them above your head and you can throw them at whatever. Kind of like other Kirby games right? Since you don't have copy abilities, you can just throw balls of yarn. Oh, the second thing is that if you just tab the button, you grab onto the enemy and rip them to shreds with your yarn lasso. That's what happens. Holy shit. Kirby games have never been so ruthless. Other Kirby games never let you see you digesting your enemies into stars. Yarn or no yarn, if you did something like that in real life, you're leaving a bloody mess on the floor.

Now, while we're on the topic of abilities, let's get a little more specific...

Mobility

Kirby hates you for this, Nintendo. Kirby's inhalation of air did more than just let him eat fucking everything, it let him fly. Now, he can't. He can, however, turn into a parachute. The working physics of a parachute is that it's large surface area pushes against the air on it's way down, thus slowing the fall significantly. What the fuck is going on here?

Some other things that you can do are turn into a car, a yo-yo, a top, and a tiny tank. If you get to a point in a level where you are required to turn into something more complicated that you can't transform into on a regular basis. Some of these things are a UFO, a dolphin, a snowboarding penguin or a giant tank.

I don't have a problem with many of these, but they are all very limited use. None of these things can be used wherever the hell you want with the exception of the car because it's just dashing but for lazy Kirby when he doesn't want to take the bus, and the occasional turning into a weight and apparently getting heavy as hell despite being made of the same yarn. Therefore, unless you're in a place where you are required to use it to get something/somewhere, you can't use it. It seems pretty useless most of the time. But here's something that's even more useless...

Scoring

Lots of games with stages and worlds have decided to score you on your performance, D usually being the lowest (Sometimes E) and S usually being the highest. It's a pretty familiar system by now, and it usually incorporates a variety of things. Sonic games usually base it on how fast you ran through the level, Mario games usually base it on score alone, but what can Kirby do? Kirby doesn't have anything that can support a functioning scoring system because of all the things you can do and all the different ways you can do it. Kirby games are so limitless that there is no plausible way to score the levels you play.

Oh wait.

Kirby's Epic Yarn introduces Beads. You need to collect lots of beads to get a good score in the level. It's completely useless to bother, but it's something you might as well do along the way, otherwise the game gets boring as hell. There are several uses for the beads, none of which are very original. You use beads outside of the levels as currency to buy more useless shit like furniture for your house that has nothing to do with anything and does nothing but look pretty while you sit around in your Yarny house not playing any levels. To bead collecting challenging, every time Kirby gets hit, you lose a shitton of beads. You can recollect them if their within reach before they disappear, and if they don't fall down into a pit. Oh, but don't fall into a pit yourself because then an angel appears and as it carries you out of the pit, you shit out all of your fucking beads and they usually all fall back into the pit, forever unreachable. Oh, and don't think that taking a hit with no beads kills you...

Challenge

Having a challenge in a video game is necessary for fun. It's not necessarily original in anyway at all, but Kirby's Epic Yarn completely erased any challenge it could have had. You can't die in this game. When you lose all your beads and take a hit, you're fine. It doesn't matter what happens, you're perfectly safe at all times. You don't have a health meter, and getting hit makes you flinch and lose your beads. Don't have any beads? Ok, let's just take out that last part until you get some beads to lose. This makes boss fights extremely easy, and boss fights that you can't figure out (if for some reason you can't figure it out) long and obnoxious. Scrambling around to collect your beads is a definite distraction, but what else is there for you to do? Nothing is out to get you for anything more than making you poor.

The final boss was disappointing. It wasn't long enough, and there was no challenge. The biggest problem you could have had was landing hits, and when you get to the last phase, it's just stupid easy. It's not necessary to make you completely invincible in a video game even if it is directed at children. Invincibility for the sake of not wanting kids to lose and have fits should be left for games like Disney Princesses and shit like that, which aren't all that legitimate. Speaking of being illegitimate...

Legitimacy

Kirby games have some noticeable patterns to them. There's always a Wispy Woods clone, even Epic Yarn stuck with that idea. There was, however, one very disappointing boss battle that I was looking forward to.

Meta Knight battles always allow Kirby to use a Sword. That's because Meta Knight is Chivalrous, and because sword fights are awesome. Of course, Kirby's Epic Yarn did not include a sword fight because there is no sword ability, and Nintendo felt it unnecessary to make a special exception for this particular part of the game. Instead, it was filled with Meta Knight throwing fireballs at Kirby from his sword, and getting them thrown back at him, never realizing that if he stopped throwing fireballs, he would be Goddamn invincible. He says later that he was sorry and that the Yarn had made him evil or something because he needed an excuse for not knitting a Yarn sword for Kirby when he made his own. What a douche.

That's really all there is to it. Now, I'm not saying that Kirby's Epic Yarn was a bad game. It was a good game. Not the best game I've ever played, and it was pretty short and didn't have a lot to it, but it was alright. You have to take into consideration what the market is for games when you think about how good/bad it is, so for a kid's game, it was decent. Compared to other Kirby games, however, it was awful. If they just went ahead and tried again on that game that was supposed to be for the Gamecube that got delayed repeatedly and then cancelled, I imagine that people would be much happier with the result. I know I would have been.

KingRanter