Live Magazine March Issue

LIVE MARCH 2018

Special Edition With Bonus Nintendo Switch Special Included

Games Cosplay Review 2017 Product Catalogue

This issue features a mini magazine taking a look at the Nintendo Swithch - the console we absoultely love here at the office. Plus we take a look at games, cosplay and our product catalogue.

Our Retro Editor, Paul, did a bunch of brilliant interviews for this issue and we’ve included them all for you to read. He talked to Johnny Yong Bosch, Laura Bailey and more ... take a look and we hope you like this issue of Live.

OUR SPECIAL EDITION SWITCH ISSUE IS AT THE END OF THIS ISSUE

NEWS PLUS YOUR SAY

News from our partners at VG Chartz

Life is Strange: Before the Storm Bonus Episode Out Now

by William D’Angelo

The bonus episode for Life is Strange: Before the Storm Farewell - has been released.

The bonus episode is available to anyone who upgrades to the Digital Deluxe edition or purchased the boxed Limited Edition on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Windows PC via Steam.

SOURCE VG CHARTZ

FIFA 18 Tops UK Charts in Slow Week

BY William D’Angelo VG Chartz

FIFA 18 has remained at the top of the UK charts for another week, according to Chart-Track for the week ending March 3. It is the seventh time the game has topped the charts.

Overall UK game sales dropped 20 percent week-on-week.

Here are the top 10 best-selling titles (combined sales) for the week: 1. FIFA 18 2. Grand Theft Auto V 3. Call of Duty: WWII 4. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe 5. Monster Hunter: World 6. Super Mario Odyssey 7. EA Sports UFC 3 8. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds 9.The Legend of Zelda: The Breath of the Wild 10. Shadow of the Colossus

Inside Xbox Monthly Show Premieres March 10 With a Look at Sea of Thieves, Far Cry 5 and More

by William D’Angelo VG Chartz The Planet of the Apes, a film that launched a massive sci/fi franchise that is still going today. The original film though is just a masterpiece of science fiction. Astronauts arrive on a strange planet to find humans enslaved to a race of intelligent apes. only to discover at the end of the film, (spoiler alert...) they have actually arrived in the future, where apes have taken over the planet. It is this twist that shocked the world and launched this series into the stratosphere. Before that point in the film it is just a seemingly run of the mill since fiction film. Then out of nowhere BOOM, it is the future. It adds so much to the overall drama of the plot and makes it all the more impactful and thought provoking. of the plot and makes it all the more impactful and thought provoking.

Movies we’re hanging out for...

2018 MOVIES WE’RE LOOKING FORWARD TO SEEING There’s some great movies coming out or.. by the time you read this, already out. Black Panther is kickiing major butt at the box office, Red Sparrow had the fake news drama with the now famous “dress” scandal that wasn’t a scandal but some “journalists” (and we use the term lightly) having a conspiracy hissie fit about J Law wearing a dress in the cold. Solo will hopefully be awesome and not a money maker, and Dead Pool should be pants wetting fun - we hope!

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND 1997 Dir: Steven Spielberg

Classic of the month. Remember when Spielberg tried to make aliens fun and friendly? Well it was a classic film at the time but if you ask some folks, alien abduction isn’t fun at all. Still, it’s a great movie and well worth streaming one night.

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Display alone or alongside other DC character Bishoujo statues from Kotobukiya such as Batgirl, the Huntress, or Poison Ivy.

INTERVIEW YOUR SAY

Retro Editor Paul Monopoli has been very busy!

Interview I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing most of the cast of Dragon Ball, but I still have a wish list of people I haven’t met yet. One of those people was the wonderful Laura Bailey.

Laura has starred in several of my favourite series as some of my favourite characters, including Kid Chi Chi in Dragon Ball, Kid Trunks in Dragon Ball Z and Shin Nohara in Crayon Shin Chan.

Creek and she was afraid to take the part because she didn’t want to let her school down because she was also the lead in her play and she would be stranding them. I just identified so much with that and she seemed so normal. It seemed all of a sudden like acting was something that was possible for me to do, and so yeah, she inspired me to actually pursue it.

I had the pleasure of sitting down with her at Supanova Adelaide 2017, where we discussed her varied career to date.

Paul: And you were involved in the theatre as well.

Paul: Joining me now at Supanova 2017 is Laura Bailey. How are you doing?

Laura: Hello, I’m doing well. Thankyou.

Paul: Now, you were inspired to act

by Katie Holmes I believe.

Laura: Oh my gosh, I can’t believe you know that!

Paul: Wikipedia knows that.

Laura: I was in high school and I wanted to be an actress, and I saw this behind the scenes… I didn’t even watch Dawson’s Creek, but I saw a behind the scenes show on Dawson’s Creek and Katie Holmes was doing this interview about how she was in her high school theatre program, and she got cast in Dawson’s

Laura: I was, I was in my high school theatre program as well.

Paul: Do you still get involved in the theatre every now and again?

Laura: It’s been a long time, just because my schedule is to insane with voice acting now. But that’s how I got into Dragon Ball Z is I was doing live theatre and got the audition through that.

Paul: And you’ve also starred with the big man himself, Chuck Norris I believe.

Laura: *laughs* Yes, that was one of the first on camera jobs I ever did was Walker Texas Ranger, yeah!

Paul: What was he like?

Laura: He was so nice… he is so nice. You know, when you’re filming on TV a lot of times lines can

with Laura Bailey get cut or added willy nilly and they were going to cut one of my lines and I was so young and it was the first thing I ever did and Chuck saw my face, that they were going to cut one of my lines and he was like, ‘you know what? Let’s just leave her line in there. You know, I think she really wants to do it’, and it was so nice of him to let me to do that.

Yeah, he was a very great guy.

Paul: At the moment you do a lot of ADR work, so it’s in front of a microphone. How does that differ for you for live performance on a stage?

Laura: It’s a very different process because you’re having to…

Paul: is it a different level of intensity?

Laura: It’s just a different thing, because on camera so much of what you convey is through your eyes, and you don’t have that luxury when you’re on a mic, so all of the emotion you have to put into your voice, and that’s why a lot of the people who come from on camera work don’t do as well in voiceover, because they haven’t quite taken that. They don’t know that extra step that you have to do for voice over.

Paul: So it’s an extra skill?

Laura: It is. It really is, yeah.

Paul: After your audition at Funimation you got the role of Kid Trunks and Kid Chi Chi. Laura: Oh yeah I did, on Dragon Ball.

Paul: So what was it like having those characters under your belt straight away? Because they’re main characters.

Laura: They are yeah. That was the first thing I auditioned for and the first thing I booked. It was a lot of strain. I wasn’t used to that kind of strain. Kid Trunks was actually a very difficult voice to do. *Does Kid Trunks voice* You know, I mean he’s right here which is already a little bit raspy, then as soon as you start fighting as him *stops Kid Trunks voice* I mean it just tears your throat out. I lost my voice in the callback for it.

Paul: Really?

Laura: Yeah.

Paul: Sean Schemmel has actually told a similar story.

Laura: Yeah, so it actually scars your vocal chords when you’re doing a character like that and so after years of doing it I was able to sustain that voice a lot longer but it took some time at the beginning, because I wasn’t trained. I didn’t know how to do a voice like that and sustain it, but you learn over time.

Paul: Is that why you don’t do it anymore?

Yeah, Alexis has done a great job of taking over a lot of the roles I can’t do anymore since I don’t like in Texas, and she’s a fabulous voice actress. I gave her my blessing. I was very happy that she took over the part.

Paul: So I guess Shin Nohara would be the complete opposite?

Laura: Oh yeah, that’s right. There was some stuff going on with the union, so yeah, I recommended her a lot of times. If I can’t do a role I’ll say, ‘this girl Alexis, she’s really good and she sounds a lot like me’, so yeah.

Laura: *Does Shin Nohara’s voice* Shin Nohara is like… I describe it as having a potato in your throat, and you just have to talk around it.

Paul: And you both share a role in Fire Emblem Heroes as well I believe?

Paul: *laughs* Oh… and other main characters, Tohru Honda (from Fruits Basket) and Serena from Case Closed.

Paul: Moving into video games, you are Chun-Li.

Laura: Oh yeah. You’ve got a memory lane down here yeah!

Paul: I interviewed Caitlin Glass about a year or two ago. That was a role that she coveted quite a lot before she got Cammy.

Paul: I love Case Closed. Case Closed is a fabulous series. Why did it end? I mean, 5 seasons and there was still so much more to do.

Laura: I know, there was. You know, I don’t know why it did. Maybe it just didn’t have the budget, I’m not sure.

Paul: Possible. Now, Alexis Tipton has taken over from Trunks.

Laura: Yes she has.

Paul: I remember there was a bit of an uproar before the first episode of (Dragon Ball) Super came out.

That first episode of Super aired and I thought it was you. I thought you’d done a few.

Laura: She sounds so much like me.

Laura: Yes!

Laura: Yeah, it was funny. I auditioned for that part and it was all NDAs, so they couldn’t actually tell us what game we were auditioning for, but I saw the character designs and was like ‘AH, that’s Chun-Li! I’m auditioning for Chun-Li!’ And I totally freaked out, and apparently I was one of the only people who auditioned that knew what that character was, that knew it was Chun-Li when I saw it.

Paul: Really?

Laura: Yeah! That’s crazy to me.

Just… she’s so iconic.

LAURA BAILEY

Laura: I don’t do it anymore because I live in California now, and I do a lot of other voice over there, so in order to do Kid Trunks I’d either have to record in Texas or find the time to fit it in there, and it does tear your throat up so it’s really hard if I’m working on a Naughty Dog property or something and then I go in the next day and I would maybe not a voice anymore.

Paul: And your husband is Guile.

Laura: I’ve been in California for a decade now.

Laura: Yes he is.

Age, I was obsessed with. Played that multiple times through. I like RPGs a lot.

Paul: Really? That long?

Paul: So a lot of the roles you do together, do you sort of… if one gets in the other puts in a good word for the other?

Laura: No. You would think that that would happen, because that would be great if we could do that. No, a lot of the time we’ll audition for projects and people don’t even know that we know each other. Like, we both went in and auditioned for Halo, and the very first day we showed up, because we shot that on the MOCAP (MOtion CAPture) stages. The first day she showed up on we set we walked in together holding hands and they were like, ‘wait a minute! Do you know each other? Are you dating?’ And we’re like, ‘oh, we’re married.’ *laughs* They didn’t even know!

Paul: And how did you meet? Because you’re both voice actors.

Laura: Yes, we met back in Texas when we were at the very beginning of our career. We were extras on a set together, and just kinda hit it off and became good friends for a very long time and then after we moved out to California we started dating.

Paul: So it was after the Funimation days?

Laura: Yes it was.

Paul: How long have you been out of Funimation for?

Paul: You’re Wonder Woman I believe as well?

Paul: Excellent. OK, and we have time for just one more question.

Anything you want to tell us about your husband? Because he’s gonna come out in a minute and we’re gonna have a talk to him. Anything you can tell us about while he’s not here?

Laura: Yes and Wonder Woman on Lego, and a lot of video games.

Laura: *laughs* He’s a great guy & you guys are gonna love him.

Paul: You do a lot of video games.

Do you play a lot of video games?

Paul: Excellent. Well thank you for your time Laura Bailey.

Laura: I do, I do. That’s one of the greatest things about being in this industry is that I’m a fan of it as well.

I grew up playing King’s Quest and Quest for Glory.

Laura: Thankyou. I appreciate it.

Laura: It’s been a long time, yes.

Most of what I do now is more Western animation, so I do Avengers with Marvel and Disney.

Paul: What do you play today?

Laura: I haven’t had the change to play anything in a while. The last game I just was obsessed with was probably Fallout 4. I put way too much time into that. Skyrim, way too much time into it! The last Dragon

WRITTEN BY PAUL MONOPOLI

INTERVIEW YOUR SAY

Retro Editor Paul Monopoli has been very busy!

Interview with Laura Bailey left the backstage area and sent out her husband, Travis Willingham. The cheers from the Stan Lee panel could still be heard throughout the pavilion, and Travis commented that Stan the Man deserves every single cheer that he gets.

We sat down and had a chat about his career, and his marriage.

Paul: Joining me today is Travis Willingham. How are you sir?

Travis: Very well sir, thank you for having me.

Paul: Did you always want to be an actor? Was that always a goal for you?

Travis: Yeah, I figured out pretty early that with all of the energy I had and sort of, my lack of discipline in school that it was either going to be sports or some sort of acting and theatre, and acting and theatre seems to hurt a bit less. *laughs* So I learned pretty early on in high school and into college that this is what I wanted to do whether it was on stage or film or TV or voice over.

It’s just a great chance to explore and use your imagination.

Paul: Where did you get your start in acting? Laura started in theatre…

Travis: Yeah, same thing. It’s a funny story, we both had the same theat-

rical agents in Dallas when we were like 19, right out of high school. We were both doing theatre locally in Texas and she started working in voice over a few years before I did and I was hounding her! Just going ‘oh, please get me an audition. I wanna work on those shows!’ And she finally helped me get an audition for a show, and everything just kinda took off from there, so we started in theatre, transitioned into voice over and then we did a little bit of TV and film, and it’s video games and animation for us pretty much.

Paul: And you’ve now both moved to California?

Travis: That’s right. We‘ve been in Los Angeles for… gosh I think like 13 years now for me.

Paul: Geez Travis: Yeah, it’s crazy, right?

Paul: So you’re working more on Western animation than anime per se, and video games?

Travis: Correct. We still do a bit of anime, but the majority of our time is original animation, whether it’s Western or Eastern, and video games.

Paul: Your most notable role would be in Full Metal Alchemist, which is a show that… Vic Mignogna abso-

h Travis Willingham lutely adores that show. He was telling me that Edward Elric, of all the characters he’s ever played, when Full Metal Alchemist ended he realised, this is the character and the show I love. What was your take on it?

Travis: It’s hard not to like those characters, they were just so well rounded. We all have our favourite characters and our favourite shows but for Full Metal they had such a great display of guilt and remorse and humour and love and regret, and all of these things that round out a character far from just being heroes or villains. I mean, even the villains had aspects that you started to sympathise with because of their history and they just built this world in a short 50-52 episode season that I think just grabbed everybody. I mean, for me Roy Mustang was the first major character that I ever played in anime, and I was spoiled because he was just incredible. He’s suave and confident and heroic. And then he’s also guilt ridden and depressed and remorseful, and just being to sink your teeth, as an actor, into all of those beefy bits of material… I mean, it’s just a great pleasure. It’s also fun on all the other shows that we play at we get to play incredibly quirky characters or high energy characters but that’s that well rounded and grounded at the same time is just a treat.

Paul: And I believe that was your first

main role. You’d done little bits and pieces in shows like Dragon Ball Z before that?

formance that was given before. The skill of matching lip flaps is the last 20% of that, which is being able to read a line, match the dialogue as it’s happening on the screen and still give the performance, so they’re two entirely different disciplines, and they’re both enjoyable in different ways.

Travis: Well actually I had only done one tiny role in Yu Yu Hakusho, it was maybe about 20 lines just so that Funimation could see if I actually knew how to act in front of the microphone or not, and then Full Metal was the very next thing. Dragon Ball Z and all those Paul: Now in video games you and Laura both rather other roles came years later when they were doing got key characters in the Street Fighter series. She’s different variations of video games, when Dameon Chun-Li and you’re Guile.

Clarke wasn’t around…

Travis: Yeah! I mean, we grew up like everyone else Paul: Because you were Cell. as massive fans of Street Fighter so when they send out the audition, information for the characters, they Travis: Yeah, that’s correct yeah. And I’m a huge DBZ didn’t actually put the character names but there was fan, so when Dameon wasn’t available I was the first just character art of Guile and Chun-Li, and the line for one to raise my hand and go like, ‘I do a great Dame- Chun-Li was ‘spinning bird kick’ and the third line for on Clarke impression. I just want to do that voice and Guile was ‘sonic boom’. So we wrote back and said, that’s it. Nothing new!’, and they were like, ‘sure, let’s ‘this is Street Fighter, right?’ But he said, ‘ahhh, we do it.’ can neither confirm nor deny’ and we were like, ‘yeah, OK,. Whatever. Fine!’ So yeah, it was a blast to do that.

Paul: Fantastic. Now, were you in Dragon Ball Raging It was one of the shortest sessions we’d ever done.

Blast 2 as Cell?

I mean, it’s just an honour to be a part of a franchise that’s been around for so many years.

Travis: I’m not sure. There were so many different variations of the video games we forget which titles we Paul: And it’s definitely endured. It’s a role you’re still were in and we weren’t in, so I couldn’t say for sure. playing in Street Fighter 5.

Paul: I understand that. What about video games vs ADR acting for you. What is the difference in the recording studio.

Travis: Right, so video games we’re normally recording first so there’s no constraints. There’s no lip flap that we have to match, you’re not matching any previous performance or animation. There’s nothing that really defines how the scene looks or what the character’s doing, so you are starting from scratch… from zero. ADR, you know what the character looks like, you can see what sort of emotion or energy he is displaying. You can see the sounds of the scene around him, there are explosions going off or it’s out in a meadow, so you know whether to be soft or quiet and it’s very informed already. Almost 75%-80% of the work is already done, you just have to match the per-

Travis: Sure, yeah!

Paul: And any other sequels that come out, you are the man they’ll call.

Travis: That’s… I mean, hopefully that’s the idea *laughs* Paul: Now you’ve been involved in a lot of Marvel and DC universe animation. What’s your preference?

DC or Marvel? Keeping in mind, your wife is Wonder Woman!

Travis: *laughs* Oh man, I know, I understand. We’ve been lucky enough to play characters in both universes which is amazing. We’ve had, I think more of an opportunity to play Marvel characters. I’ve been the

voice of Thor for the last seven years. I was able to play a tiny chibi version of Hulk for a few years before that in Superhero Squad, and I love that universe. DC was my first comic love growing up. That was kinda my entry into comics, was the Justice League and Batman, Superman. Superman being my favourite character of all time.

Paul: And there’s Superman here today! (Tyler Hoechlin from the Supergirl TV series) Travis: Yeah, I know! He’s here! I was like, ‘Hey, nice to meet you Superman!’ And he’s like, ‘OK, you take it easy.’ But we played Lego Superman, Lego Won-

der Woman. I’ve been able to play Harvey Dent, Two Face, she (Laura) got to play Catwoman in Telltale’s Batman video game franchise so we love both. It would be impossible to choose between the two. It’s just refreshing to be able to jump from one to the other and enjoy both.

Paul: I can completely understand that. Travis, thank you for your time. It’s been an absolute pleasure speaking with you.

Travis: You too man. Thanks for having me.

INTERVIEW YOUR SAY

Retro Editor Paul Monopoli has been very busy!

Interview wit After my talk with Travis, former Power Ranger and voice actor supremo Johnny Yong Bosch came along to have a chat. We discussed his time with the Super Sentai show, his career in voice acting and his love of music.

Paul: Joining me now at Supanova Adelaide 2017, it’s former Power Ranger Johnny Yong Bosch.

Johnny: Hello!

Paul: How are you doing?

Johnny: I’m good.

Paul: Fantastic. Now, you’re a martial artist.

Johnny: Yeah.

Paul: So what’s your background in the martial arts?

Johnny: Well, in the very beginning, before Power Rangers, I studied shaolin kung fu, and after that various different martial arts. Currently I do hapkido, scrima and Brazilian ju jitsu.

Paul: So how did that transition into being an actor?

Johnny: You know what? For me, growing up I’ve always been a fan of martial arts, so watching Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan and Sunday Kung Fu Theatre, whatever it was,

that got me interested in it… just to do martial arts on film, and all of that peaked my interest so being on Power Rangers was like that dream kinda coming true.

Paul: When you came into Power Rangers it was an established show. There was a bit of upheaval over some of the actors leaving and some remaining. How was the vibe on set? Were you welcome quite openly?

Johnny: Yeah. We didn’t feel anything odd at all, and even when we auditioned we didn’t know that we were replacing anyone. We just knew that they were looking for new Rangers and we didn’t know what it means. We just to an audition. So for us, we didn’t sense any of that, and after we found out some of the rumours or heard some of the rumours and then met the other guys that we replaced things, even then, were cool.

Paul: Oh, so you actually got to meet them.

Johnny: Oh yeah, absolutely. Later… you know, they weren’t on set or anything. It was like, we met them at parties and through other friends.

Paul: And conventions?

Johnny: Yeah.

Paul: Now you stayed with the show

th Johnny Yong Bosch for a while and you guest starred again in 2007. Is it the kind of show that keeps you wanting to come back?

Johnny: Well, every once in a while they reach out and they pull you back in. Both times Koichi Sakamoto, who is the second unit director, became executive producer, he was the one who asked me to come back. He’s like my instructor, basically. So if he tells me, ‘hey I want you to come back’, you kinda feel like you need to come back.

Obligated to in some way.

Paul: And it’s amazing the following Power Rangers has in Japan. I was at the Toei museum last year, in Osaka, and they’ve got all the Power Rangers, since the 70s over there, and there’s a section where they talk about the American Power Rangers.

Johnny: Yeah, it’s still pretty huge there. I’ve got a magazine from there that has all the Power Rangers and it includes us, which is kinda cool to see.

Paul: Definitely. Now after Power Rangers wound down for you, you’ve turned more into voice acting instead of actual acting.

Johnny: Well, it’s still acting *laughs* Paul: Sorry, I mean live action acting.

Johnny: Right. It’s a different form of acting. One of the things that I think is really awesome about voice acting is that you’re not locked in to what you look like, and you have time. You show up for work, from 10 till 2 and you work instantly, whereas when you go up on set you’re early in the morning, you get makeup on and you sit around for hours, then you rehearse, they setup lights, you sit around for hours, then you do your thing, and then you change for the next scene, and so there’s a lot of waiting before you can actually work, and so full days go by and you’re just sitting around for most of the day just waiting to do a small scene. So in voice over you get to instantly act, which is great.

Johnny: Yeah Paul: Working for the Disney Channel, what’s that like?

Johnny: It’s pretty crazy, I mean, it’s just a fun show.

There’s been a lot of freedom in having fun with it and playing around with it. But yeah, he’s just a goofy kid who’s not very responsible at all. But it’s a fun show, I enjoy it.

Paul: So Disney allow you a bit of freedom to maybe improvise a little bit?

Johnny: There is a bit of freedom there because Paul: And you’ve been in a lot of big name produc- there’s a lot of stuff lost in translation. A lot of jokes tions. You were in Cardcaptor Sakura, Naruto, Sailor that are lost in translation, and there are certain things Moon, Gundam… Do you have any favourites among that you can and can’t do in America that you could in any of the anime series you’ve done?

Japan. Like you can’t show a naked boy, so there are things that are adjusted of course.

Johnny: I do have favourites. Code Geass, Trigun, Bleach, Wolf’s Rain, Akira. Yeah I have a lot of favour- Paul: And you are also a Street Fighter, joining Laura ites.

Bailey and Travis Willingham, Chun-Li and Guile. You are Yang?

Paul: That was one of your first roles, Akira, wasn’t it?

Johnny: That’s correct.

Johnny: It was my second one, yeah.

Paul: What was it like for you going for that audition?

Paul: And it was a redub of the original dub I believe? Because from what they told me, they weren’t told what it was about. They were not allowed to be told Johnny: Correct, yes. what it was about. They got the character sheet and the lines and that was it.

Paul: Did they go into why they were doing a redub of it?

Johnny: Yeah, that’s the way a lot of those are.

They’re top secret. They’ll tell you a different name, Johnny: What I was told was that the original Japa- and so you just audition. I had no idea! I just went in nese director wasn’t one hundred percent satisfied, and did my thing, and I don’t even remember what the because certain things were translated, or not trans- audition was like for that one, because it happens so lated well, or maybe the meaning didn’t come across. often. It’s just all a blur, all the shows.

So that was what I was told, and there were some things that I understood better when I went in to dub Paul: I’ve spoken to other voice actors like that. Steve that when I’d originally seen the film.

Blum, who was one of the original voice actors for English Goku, I’ve asked him about that and he said, “I Paul: And you are in, finally, an English dub of Do- don’t remember. It was just an audition, I went in and raemon. You’re Noby! did some lines and that was it.’

Johnny: Exactly. Here’s the thing. Even as I’ve been here in Australia I’ve already gone through seven different auditions. Quite a few that I skipped because I just couldn’t do it because of the time difference, but yeah, just here in my hotel room recording auditions.

And you just lay ‘em out and throw ‘em out there, and hope that they stick and you get something.

Paul: So you actually do auditions here, while you’re in the country?

Johnny: Yeah. As a voice actor you have need to be on call, ready to audition all the time.

Paul: How did music start for you? It’s sort of a recent thing from what I can see…

Johnny: Well no. We’ve been playing for 13 years. My band is called Eyeshine, we’ve got about 15 albums and it’s been going on a for a long time. It started, basically after Power Rangers when I couldn’t really get a job. I had a hard time. Being half asian, there’s not a whole lot of roles for a half asian. And it’s confusing, I don’t look one way or the other, so I didn’t fit an asian role, or a caucasian role when I was going out on auditions for on camera work at that time. So it was very difficult.

Paul: This was twenty-odd years ago?

Paul: So you’re in your hotel room, and you’re just on the microphone recording what they want to hear?

Johnny: Exactly.

Paul: Is there anything you can tell us about what’s coming up?

Johnny: Yeah, exactly. I mean, now it’s different but back then definitely, it was very difficult. So I had this guitar and I taught myself how to play. I was in a depression, but that bought me out of my depression a bit, because it gave me some freedom to be creative, and I found a way to express my emotions and I started a band.

Johnny: No, absolutely not *laughs* Paul: NDAs? (Non disclosure agreements) Johnny: All NDAs yeah, those are all NDAs.

Paul: Brilliant! Just one more question. Where can people find you online?

Johnny: They can find me on all the social media under my name, Johnny Yong Bosch.

Paul: Now, you’re also a musician.

Johnny: Yes.

Paul: Alright. Thankyou for your time Johnny, it’s been an absolute pleasure.

INTERVIEW YOUR SAY

Retro Editor Paul Monopoli has been very busy!

Interview After my interview with Johnny I had a bit of time to chill and relax.

Then along came Buffy star James Marsters. Being a Dragon Ball fan, I just had to ask him about his recent apology for Dragon Ball Evolution, as well being Spike on TV and in video games.

Paul: So, join me now at Supanova 2017, it’s Spike the Vampire, James Marsters. How’re you doing?

James: I’m really good man.

Paul: Pleasure to meet you.

James: Thanks man.

Paul: Now, a few months ago, I noticed that… it might have been a year ago now, you actually made a formal apology for Dragon Ball Evolutions.

James: Yes, because the film sucked and we all know this.

Paul: I haven’t seen it…

James: Well in that case it was really good. If you haven’t seen it it was fab. No, it was a bad movie. I’m a Dragon Ball fan and it actually helped me raise my son. It led to a lot of good conversations about manhood, because the lead character in Dragon Ball Z is a guy named Goku who is peaceful and humble, goofy and does not want to get in a fight, but if you attack

his family he will burn you alive, and that’s a great man as far as I’m concerned. I think that we’re protectors and then there’s another character, especially in the early Dragon Ball, called Vegeta who is an overgrown boy in a mans body, and he’s short for the metaphor and he’s constantly causing chaos so he can prove his manhood, not understanding that he is a man and he can just relax and be peaceful. So it was a great conversation starter about all that when my son was just coming into his young teens. So I signed on to the film without a script and that told me it was a $130 million picture and Stephen Chow was producing. Stephen wrote and directed Kung Fu Hustle and Shaolin Soccer which was perfect. He’s a perfect person for Dragon Ball because, especially Kung Fu Hustle was goofy, scary and mystical and had all the elements that you would need. And I got down to the deserts of Durango Mexico and found out that it was a $30 million picture and Stephen Chow was nowhere to be seen. He was just on paper to fool us all down.

Paul: Ohhhhhh…

James: And Chow Yun Fat and I were just cursing out in the sand, like ‘I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS’. And so yeah.

Paul: I believe there was a news report about you getting in touch with

with James Marsters Chris Sabat for a part in Dragon Ball Super.

James: Yeah!

Paul: I’d actually Tweeted him about that and I’d be quite happy for that to happen.

James: I hope that happens, yeah.

Paul: Still campaigning for it?

James: Yeah.

Paul: Fantastic. Now, if anything you know how to out-Brit a Brit. You were working in Buffy the Vampire Slayer with a British accent, working with a British actor. Much like John Hillerman did in Magnum P.I. who sadly passed away just over a week ago. He was Higgins in Magnum P.I. In an episode of Magnum, which took place in England and had a former Doctor Who, and as heavily Texan as he was he sounded just as British.

James: Yeah.

Paul: Did you have much training for the accent?

James: * In British accent * I had a guy named Tony Head, and he came up to me. I said ‘bollocks’ (as ‘bullocks’) and he just lost it. He came up to me and said, ‘we don’t say it like that you prat. I’m gonna help you now.’ And he force fed me

the accent , and it got better. Over the years it got a get the audience to understand what you’re thinking lot better. But I’m only British if you pay me and you’re and what you’re feeling and what’s going on inside not paying me so I’m going to stop it now. your brain. So on film the camera is very intimate. It’ll see everything, but for a video game you really have Paul: That’s fair. to put all of that back into the voice, unless you’re doing performance capture in which case it’s just like James: There we go. acting, but the Buffy game was made before all that technology, so the expression wasn’t really coming Paul: And that’s actually led you into the world of Doc- from the animated face, it was really coming from the tor Who where you had a role in Torchwood as Cap- voice. So the stage stuff helped a lot. tain John.

Paul: So there’d still be a bit of animation in your face James: Yeah, and I asked the producers, they pro- as you get the vocal bits across though I imagine. duce both shows, if I could go over on Who, and they said, ‘no way! You’re too naughty!’ *laughs* They said, James: Yeah, that’s not actor driven. ‘you’re designed for an adult audience and Doctor Who’s gotta be for everybody.’

Paul: It’s more personality?

Paul: Any possibility of that happening with Big Finish? Because yo’ve been working with them recently on another Captain John story.

James: Yeah, and that’s the great thing about video games these days is they’re capturing the performance as it happens on the actor. Not every game, But especially Naughty Dog and a lot of games these days are putting the dots on the actors faces and they really get in the moment expression. It’s just a huge leap forward. I’d love to do a Buffy game. It’s the only way I’d be able to play Spike again, you know, because I”m old now.

James: Yeah. They didn’t know that I was interested in doing them. These are radio plays for Torchwood. For some reason they thought I wouldn’t be interested, and I’m very interested. I love that character, I love working with John (Barrowman) and so yeah, I did my first one and they loved what happened and they want to do more, and I’m really open to it, yeah.

Paul: I wouldn’t go that far. Any chance of coming back? There have been rumours…

Paul: So Nick Briggs (Big Finish producer), if you’re listening get this man into Doctor Who. James: Yeah, in a video game. I told Joss that if he wanted to work with me again I’d come from wherevJames: *In British accent* Yeah, for God’s sake! er I was in the world for five lines or five hundred. That I’d drop everything and come to work with him, but Paul: Now, working in Buffy. It’s been in comic form, if he had Spike he had a seven year clock that was it’s been on TV and it’s been in video games as well. ticking, because Spike is a vampire, he doesn’t age.

So for you, acting as Spike in a video game, how was that?

Paul: I believe David Boreanaz said something similar actually.

James: It’s a little more like stage where you really have to put the character into your voice, because on James: Well we’re vampires. It makes sense. I don’t stage your face is very small and your eyes are indis- want to have to take that away from the character. I tinguishable from your face, and you’re really trying to don’t want to have to explain why he’s ageing slowly

now. You don’t want to have to say ‘Spike looks really James: Yeah. It’ll be on Hulu in the States and I’m not good for his age.’ It doesn’t work. sure where it’s going to come out, or when, here, but it’ll be here soon. It’s based on the Brian Vaughan comPaul: And you have a significant music career. You ic about a group of teenagers that find out that their were performing last night. parents are super villains, and is very popular among comic book people. It’s about the gulf between the James: Yeah. generations, and I think I play the biggest douche bag of all the parents so I’m having a blast *laughs* Paul: What got you into music?

James: My Dad played guitar and he taught me. I Paul: Sometimes it’s good to play the villain. Well… started playing in bars when I was 13, and then I was you’d know that! in a rock band in high school, and it’s just really fun.

James: Yes! Yeah, because I try to be a nice person Paul: Was it your first passion? in real life… I’m so going to steal your pens. Is this your pen?

James: No, acting was my first passion. I started that Paul: Oh, they’re your pens. They’re not mine. at age nine. I think I started guitar at age eleven. But they came back to back.

James: I’m stealing these… got a lot of autographs to sign. Anyway! To be a nice person usually means Paul: And one of your earliest roles was in Northern I don’t tell people what I’m thinking all the time. As Exposure. you’d probably know cos you’re a nice person as well.

James: Yeah, that got me my union card and started everything. That was awesome.

Paul: Well I try…

James: So it’s great to play a villain. You just barf all Paul: Excellent. So, one more question we have time that bile out and you get it out of your system. I’ll do for. What’s next for you? villains for my whole life if I can.

James: I’ve got a new show called Runaways. It’s based on a Marvel comic.

Paul: Fantasic. Thankyou for your time James Marsters. Absolute pleasure.

Paul: Part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

James: My pleasure brother, good to talk with you.

gameS GAME & CONSOLE SALES SO FAR FROM VG CHARTZ

S

YOUR SAY gaming

GAME AND HARDWARE SALES

Top Games at the end of 2017

FROM VGCHARTZ.COM

YOUR SAY gaming

The 10 Best Open Worlds Available on Vita

by Adam Cartwright VG CHARTZ

Once Grand Theft Auto III landed on the PS2 it felt like the landscape of gaming changed substantially – slowly but surely other franchises embraced the open-world design of having big hub worlds with dozens of side tasks within them. This was seen more and more during the seventh generation of home consoles and especially into the eighth (even trickling down to handhelds like the PSP), with multiple series re-inventing themselves with an open-world design.

Vita is no stranger to this, with a number of games coming to the handheld that offered a true free-roaming experience, allowing you to go nearly anywhere and do nearly anything whenever you please. In this article I aim to exam-

ine the best of these that are available on the Vita; the open-worlds that allow the greatest feeling of freedom, exploration, and escapism on the platform.

I won’t be including any semi-open world games (e.g. titles like Akiba’s Trip, which feature open areas that you have to use loading screens to travel between) or games with hubworlds (e.g. titles like LEGO Batman 3, where you can explore the batcave at will but otherwise just move through a series of levels). I’ll also be keeping my choice to one game per franchise, so as to avoid listing multiple entries in the same series and clogging up the list (otherwise three-tenths of the titles featured would be Grand Theft Auto games!).

Fairhaven – Need for Speed: Most Wanted The Need for Speed series has often dabbled with open-worlds. I fondly remember, for example, playing Need for Speed: Underground 2 back in the day and being really impressed with its free-roaming aspects. A number of the PSP entries attempted to recreate this – most notably Carbon: Own the City, but just as with the PSP Assassin’s Creed game, they didn’t quite pull it off.

On Vita, with its increased horsepower, Criterion Games was finally able to realise this vision with its brilliant revival of Most Wanted – an open-world racing game which allowed you to go wherever and do whatever you wanted, enhanced by the addition of ‘autolog’, which

added a quick-access menu that allowed you to zip around to the next event.

Fairhaven is a brilliant city full of totally unique zones. In one drive, and with no loading screens, you can head from the urban city centre through to the dockland, and then into winding cliff-side lanes, each evoking a different feeling during the ride. Additionally there are loads of interactive elements like speed traps and billboards to smash. You can also switch vehicle at the push of a button, and everything is as smooth as butter, making this a brilliant open-world experience.

FROM VGCHARTZ.COM

Kyoto – Ukiyo no Roushi Unique among the games on this list, Ukiyo no Roushi uses a historical city for its setting – namely Kyoto, the former imperial capital of Japan. It provides a brilliant alternative to the more modern metropolises available on the console. You’re more likely to find sacred shrines, cherry blossom trees, and swordfights in this city than skyscrapers, neon signs, and shootouts.

Taking more than a little inspiration from the Way of the Samurai series, Ukiyo gives you free reign in Kyoto, meaning you can really do what you feel like. Craft weapons, take pictures, or get involved in brawls (although you can’t cause quite as much havoc as in the aforementioned franchise) - it’s a nice sandbox to play in even if the language barrier will cause some issues (why this game wasn’t translated into English I’ll never know).

With a wide variety of missions and side stories to keep you pushing forward, you’ll eventually explore every corner of the map and, although the pace can be a little plodding, it’s definitely a unique open world and well worth checking out.

FROM VGCHARTZ.COM

Heskeville – Gravity Rush Sometimes it’s not the world itself, but how you interact with it. In the case of Gravity Rush, its movement mechanics are almost unrivalled on Vita – Kat can soar through the air, land upside-down on a building, then take off again to reach another location with a brilliant sense of momentum throughout. In this way, the feeling of freedom in the world is fantastic – if you can see something, chances are you can go there.

Of course, Heskeville itself is a brilliant place – a bustling city full of skyscrapers, train stations, and plazas that feel like unique and enjoyable places to explore, littered with objects Kat can throw around using gravity. And thanks to the bold visual design and expressive colour palette, everything manages to pop on the Vita’s screen to remain incredibly memorable long after you’ve finished playing.

The addition of NPCs who can float off if you invert gravity around them and the Nevi who lurk around every corner help create a living, dynamic world and this is one of Gravity Rush‘s greatest strengths. It’s such a shame the sequel never saw light of day on the Vita as Kat made a fantastic mascot for the console and her brand of open-world adventuring still feels unmatched on handhelds, whereas it’s more run-of-the-mill on home consoles.

FROM VGCHARTZ.COM

Manhattan – LEGO Marvel’s Avengers The Vita always seemed to get the short end of the stick with LEGO titles – when the home console versions were expanding and adding lots of new mechanics (alongside openworlds) to the already-established formula, the Vita ports were often gimped and based on the 3DS versions, which were running on much lower tech. Enter LEGO Marvel’s Avengers – the first time TT Fusion had attempted an open-world with its handheld versions (aside from LEGO City Undercover, which amusingly was a bespoke 3DS title). It made for a brilliant time thanks to its representation of Manhattan (coincidentally the second time this city has been included on this list).

Of course, this is the Marvel version of Manhattan, complete with Stark Tower and various other Avengers landmarks, alongside many of the most famous aspects of the Big Apple too, such as the Statue of Liberty and the Chrysler Building. This mix of styles makes it a great place to explore. The area’s geometry is its other great feature – it’s a sea of skyscrapers around every corner, taxis in the streets, and lego-junk to smash up.

It’s helped by the fact that, by using the Marvel licence, a wide variety of characters with different movement styles are available to play. You can leap high into the air as Hulk, fly around as Iron Man, or jump in cars and drive as Black Widow. In this way, the open-world here is probably the best on Vita because you can approach it however you like, although I often just defaulted to soaring around the sky as Doctor Strange.

FROM VGCHARTZ.COM

Manhattan – Amazing Spider-Man Some franchises just yearn for a big, open world to explore. Spider-Man is very much one of those series. Web-slinging through the streets of New York has always been a dream and although it was somewhat achieved on handhelds with the PSP versions, it came to an apex with Amazing Spider-Man on Vita.

Although it was slated by some outlets for its questionable physics (your web could connect to the sky rather than requiring a building to latch onto), the sense of freedom this gave was undeniable. You really felt like Spidey by taking to the rooftops, seeing a faraway place and slowly making your way there alongside the cab-filled streets of New York, taking in the familiar sights of soaring skyscrapers along the way.

Aiding the enjoyable open-world were a number of side quests ranging from saving civilians to stopping escaped vehicles and finding a number of hidden comic book pages, the latter of which required true mastery of the city to find every nook and cranny they were placed in. It might not be the greatest Spider-Man videogame ever made, but it sure did provide a fun dose of freedom on Vita.

FROM VGCHARTZ.COM

Vice City – Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories Just like it defined the PS2, Rockstar’s seminal Grand Theft Auto franchise helped shape the PSP as well thanks to two spin-off titles that were developed by Rockstar Leeds. Of these two, it’s the second that I’m including in this list – Vice City Stories – a prequel to 2002’s Vice City and set in the gorgeous sunset-soaked beauty of a Miami-inspired city. The game is available on Vita as a backwards-compatible PSP title (although only if you bought it prior to the game being de-listed) and it honestly puts many of the Vita’s own open-world titles to shame. The city itself is a joy to drive around, thanks to GTA‘s trademark ability to hijack cars, and you can cruise along the palm-tree laden streets in style, taking in the sights while blasting out the brilliant 80s soundtrack on the radio. There are two full islands to explore, each with their own districts and geometry – from Downtown’s gritty urban landscape to Washington Beach’s chilled atmosphere. Everything is soaked in that 80s neon-vibe that made games like Hotline Miami so beautiful and it’s this aspect that makes it superior in my eyes to other GTA entries like Liberty City Stories.

The game also keeps you constantly engaged with a variety of things to do in the city. Missions have you driving all around and visiting new areas, from the suburbs to the airport; side-missions pop-up all over, requiring you to explore to find them; and an empire-building mini-game means you can buy and develop businesses and visit them whenever you please. It’s a deep and layered game, and the open-world on show here is one of the best available in gaming, period.

FROM VGCHARTZ.COM

Tokyo – Midnight Club: LA Remix

Tokyo is a great city and has made a brilliant setting for both racing games and films (Fast and Furious) in the past. It was the focus of Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition, which you can get on Vita if you bought it before it was de-listed, but otherwise you’re out of luck. Thankfully, Rockstar Games had a solution as its next PSP Midnight Club game included this entire map. That’s in addition to the titular open world – Los Angeles – which itself provided a brilliant hub to explore on the handheld.

As you can guess, it’s a night-time version of Tokyo, full of neon signs, high-rise buildings, and urban bustle that makes it a joy to blast through at high speeds. You’ll be able to look around at your leisure, choosing to stop and race as you see fit, or merely take in the sights as you go. Throw in a winding gauntlet of streets, which make up the game’s challenge races, and you have a fantastic map to explore and get lost in while racing in a variety of expensive luxury cars and bikes.

Rockstar clearly loved the PSP as a piece of hardware and it was fantastic that the company managed to squeeze so many of its open worlds as possible onto the handheld. It’s even better that they were added to PSN and made Vita-compatible.

Even when compared with Vita-native games, like Need for Speed, Midnight Club manages to put forward a brilliant argument for why it should be a part of any owner’s library.

FROM VGCHARTZ.COM

Your Own World – Minecraft I often feel like the best open worlds are the true sandboxes – the games that give you a set of tools and an open landscape and then just let you go as wild as your imagination will take you. In this way, Minecraft is the ultimate sandbox game, since you’re free to do pretty much anything you want at any time. It’s helped by its premise – you mine and you craft. When you’re first plopped in the map and run through the forests towards the sea, anything you see can be dug out and turned into something else. What at first appears to be a decently sized but fairly flat area quickly gives way to a series of underground tunnels and caves, or a sky-high custom-built fortress where you can see far into the horizon, creating a much denser and unique world than it first seems. And it can turn out differently pretty much every time you play.

Of course, the game itself is incredibly solid too, being a unique title that lets you build your own adventures. As an open-world adventure it’s highly unique and well deserving of its place on this list, providing a brilliant portable sandbox that should stay on any owner’s memory card at all times.

FROM VGCHARTZ.COM

Wasteland – Jak III

Nearly all of the entries in the Jak franchise can be classified as open-world. The first allowed you to seamlessly move between different zones, the second introduced a fully-explored metropolis named Haven City, and spin-offs such as The Lost Frontier introduced a semi-open hub to be explored in addition to aerial dogfighting. It’s the third entry (which was included as part of the Jak & Daxter Collection in 2013) that I’m looking at here though, as it brought that design to a head across a number of different areas, the most impressive of which is the wasteland. Starting in Spargus City, a sandy oasis in which you’ll take part in initial missions, the game quickly opens up to reveal the wasteland – a sprawling desert full of roaming bandits and creepy marauders. While Jak II had taken place in the dark, oppressed Haven City, with its winding streets and obstacles everywhere, the wasteland provided a much more open equivalent that was equally enjoyable to explore, particularly given the hidden collectables and side quests everywhere.

In the latter part of the game, Jak III shifts and takes you back to Haven City, which is a fantastic nostalgia trip and provides the best of both worlds – a sprawling labyrinth of streets and a vast open space to explore at your leisure. As such, the game more than qualifies for this list. Performance issues aside, it’s a great open-world to immerse yourself in and successfully mixes vast sand dunes as far as the eye can see with the more claustrophobic feel of an urban city. The fact that you’ll traverse this mostly by vehicles is just the icing on the cake – you’ll have access to dune buggies for the wasteland and anti-grav zoomers and hoverboards for the city, all of which control differently and enjoyably.

FROM VGCHARTZ.COM

Conclusion The Vita hasn’t quite benefited from gaming’s increasing movement towards open worlds like I’d hoped, largely due to its dated mobile hardware, alongside western publishers rapidly dropping development for the platform (you’ll notice that four-fifths of this list are western-made titles). Quite a few Vita-native series I would have loved to have seen, like Far Cry, Grand Theft Auto, and Watch Dogs, simply never happened, meaning the gaps in its library are clear.

Yet if you’re a fan of free-roaming in large environments you’ll still be well served by the handheld. Key native titles like Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation and LEGO Marvel’s Avengers provide massive areas to play around in, while Rockstar’s efforts on the PSP still manage to shine even when held up to modern standards. Throw in an update of a seminal PS2 world and a Japan-only game (if you’re brave enough) and you’ve got a selection that’s well worth checking out.

I do wish more developers had taken a gamble on the console in its early years, as Criterion Games showed that with just the right amount of cutbacks you could get even the most demanding of PS3 maps running decently on it. Still, as it stands, this article details ten brilliant open worlds available on the Vita and there are plenty more I haven’t talked about here.

FROM VGCHARTZ.COM

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NINTENDO SWITCH SPECIAL

Freedom to have Wherever. Whene One Controller or two, vertical or sideways motion controls or buttons... Joy-Con and Nintendo Switch give you total gameplay flexibility!

Plus Joy-Con gives you HD number to make your gaming more immersive. The IR Motion Camera in Joy-Con can detect the shape, movement and distance of objects captured by the camera and gives you all new gaming experiences.

Like choice? We do too and we’re glad that Nintendo game us some colour combos... you can head over to the Nintendo Switch pages and experiment with colour combos for your Joy-Con. www.nintendo.com/switch/choose-your-joy-con-color/#!/jcl:neonyellow/wsl:neonyellow/wsr:neonblue/jcr:neonblue

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The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Step into a world of adventure.

Forget everything you know about The Legend of Zelda games. Step into a world of discovery, exploration, and adventure in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, a boundary-breaking new game in the acclaimed series. Travel across vast fields, through forests, and to mountain peaks as you discover what has become of the kingdom of Hyrule In this stunning Open-Air Adventure. Now on Nintendo Switch, your journey is freer and more open than ever. Take your system anywhere, and adventure as Link any way you like.

Watch the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rPxiXXxftE

Switch Shipments Reach 14.86 Million Units in 2017, Super Mario Odyssey Sells 9.07 Million Units Nintendo has released its latest hardware and software figures for the Switch and 3DS through December 31, 2017.

Shipments figures for the Nintendo Switch reached 14.86 million units as of December 31, while the Nintendo 3DS hit 71.99 million units shipped.

As for software 52.57 million games have been shipped on the Switch and 360.50 million games on the 3DS. Nintendo has updated its forecast for March 31, 2018. Nintendo predicts it

will move 15 million Switch consoles for the fiscal year. When you add in the 2.74 million units shipped in its launch month that would put shipments figures at 17.74 million units at the end of March.

Breaking down software figures, Super Mario Odyssey is the top-selling game on the Switch with 9.07 million units shipped and sold digitally.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has sold 7.33 million units, The Legend of Zelda: The Breath of the Wild 6.70 million units, Splatoon 2 4.91 million units, 1-2 Switch 1.88 million units, ARMS 1.61 million units, and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 1.06 million units.

BY WILLIAM D’ANGELO - VG CHARTZ

SWITCH NEWS!

Super Mario Ody

Review

BY EVAN NORRIS - VG CHARTZ Mario proves himself to be a man of many hats in this joyful, enchanting platformer.

“Tell me, O Muse, of the man of many devices...”

This line begins Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey but it could function easily as an introduction to Nintendo’s own magnum opus, Super Mario Odyssey. In Odyssey, Nintendo’s latest attempt to redefine a genre it more or less invented in 1981, Mario is a man of many devices, a wearer of many hats (literally), and a possessor of many things, both animate and inanimate. Most importantly, he is the star of his very own odyssey: a platform-adventure game so surprising, so joyful, and so endlessly-inventive that it ranks among the best of 2017.

(and Mario’s sometimes-girlfriend) Peach, and needs several items to complete the ceremony. One of those items is a sentient crown named Tiara. As a result Mario teams up with Tiara’s brother Cappy, a being with amazing transformational powers, to rescue the two damsels in distress.

As far as Super Mario storylines go, this is one of the more involving.

Don’t expect anything as substantial as the game’s namesake, but don’t be surprised to see a strong through line, an abundance of interesting NPCs, and even a little character development. Odyssey’s greatest contribution to the series’ narrative gestalt, however, might just be the expansion and elaboration of its fictional world — which is saying something, as previous games sent Mario into the cosmos.

Super Mario Odyssey wedding Super Mario Odyssey ship In this newest Mario adventure, the mustachioed hero must travel from kingdom to kingdom, tracking down Bowser, the big baddie of the Mario universe. Bowser has arranged a shotgun wedding between himself and Mushroom Kingdom monarch

In Odyssey, we meet new races and species; encounter different societies and civilizations, some bustling, some ancient, some decaying; and, vitally, witness, via the heroic twosome’s flying machine, how all these

yssey things are connected spatially. Never before has a Mario adventure felt so structured or so systematic. Instead of a series of loosely-connected levels or worlds, Odyssey gives players an organized system of kingdoms united by transportation, commerce, and tourism.

These kingdoms form the heart of the game. Each is a miniature sandbox filled with NPCs, platforming challenges, and dozens of collectibles. There are 14 to explore before the end credits, and several more afterward. Every one is thoughtfully-designed, meticulously-detailed, and beautifully-rendered. There are traditional kingdoms with desert, ice, and water themes, but also many surprising locales: a prehistoric kingdom complete with T-Rex; a realm of giant comestibles and cheese as hard as quartz; and, the crown jewel of Super Mario Odyssey, the busy metropolis New Donk City.

Super Mario Odyssey New Donk City Inside all of these kingdoms are scores of collectibles, including gold coins, purple coins, outfits, souve-

nirs, and power moons. Purple coins buy new costumes and trinkets from each location, and moons power the Odyssey, the hat-shaped airship that ferries Mario and Cappy between kingdoms. Like stars and shine sprites before them, power moons are the main currency of this Mario adventure. In Odyssey, however, there aren’t six or seven moons per kingdom. There are dozens. In Super Mario 64, hitting 120 stars meant your journey was at an end. Here, 120 moons is just the beginning.

The sheer number of ideas, notions, and gameplay conceits on display in Super Mario Odyssey is staggering.

Each kingdom is a game unto itself.

It helps greatly that, somehow, every captured creature plays perfectly, despite its unique weight, mass, and actions. Odyssey has impossibly flawless controls, across the board.

In a franchise known for tight, snappy controls, this game stands above all others.

Super Mario Odyssey desert

Some moons are hidden under rocks or locked behind mini-games.

Others function as rewards for fetch quests. Many more are found by taking advantage of Odyssey’s signature gameplay hook: possession, or “capture” if you’re one of Nintendo’s PR folks. By flicking Cappy on to unsuspecting Goombas, Lakitus, and even inanimate objects like huge slabs of meat (yes, really), Mario can take over control of those beings’ motor functions. It’s a brilliant mechanic that opens up a world of “many devices” to our modern Odysseus.

Super Mario Odyssey capture Things start simply. Mario possesses a frog and uses his jumping ability to scale a tall cliff. Then it’s a Paragoomba, who flies safely above poisonous smog. Then a Chain Chomp, deployed to smash through a rock wall. Next, a T-Rex, at which point all bets are off. Even without the “capture” mechanic, Mario has a huge portfolio of moves. When Nintendo adds possessed creatures into the mix, the diversity of motions and mechanics shoots off the chart.

So, Odyssey provides over a dozen mini-sandboxes with hundreds of moons to collect, and invites players to explore those sandboxes with perfect controls and a unique possession mechanic that opens up virtually endless gameplay possibilities.

What’s the catch? If there is one, it’s this: the game is easy.

Much of Odyssey’s main campaign is a breeze. Finding enough moons to power up the Odyssey and advance to the next kingdom is never a problem. Many are earned merely by talking to an NPC or by wearing the correct costume. Others are dislodged with a simple ground pound.

Some are on full display, unhidden and obvious.

Super Mario Odyssey garden The counter argument is that nabbing all this low-hanging fruit isn’t the true challenge of Super Mario Odyssey. Much like Yoshi’s Island, in which finishing a level is relatively easy but finishing that same level with all hidden items and full health is demanding, Odyssey has two layers

of difficulty: one of simple completion and one of 100 percent completion. While there’s some truth to that, it doesn’t explain the game’s pushover bosses or the general lack of penalties for failure.

That said, the game’s easiness is mitigated in a big way by a shockingly substantial end-game, nearly as big as the main campaign. Upon finishing the final boss battle and subsequent platforming episode, players are dumped into a very familiar kingdom. From there they can use moons to unlock new kingdoms, return to old kingdoms to find new moons, purchase previously-unavailable costumes, and even experience new story moments. Nintendo as a game-maker has long prioritized value and replay value, and in Odyssey it has made a game that can rival Breath of the Wild as a playground of playtime.

Super Mario Odyssey food In terms of production values, Odyssey is practically peerless. Its orchestral soundtrack is full of catchy, exciting, and atmospheric themes; its sound design captures the diversity of the game’s large roster of animals, materials, and weather systems; and its flexible, inventive art direction runs the gamut from gothic horror to medieval Japan. Only a few unsightly textures and a lot of aliasing — particularly bad among the shadows of New Donk City — serve to break the illusion.

While Mario’s exploits in Super Mario Odyssey don’t match up with Odysseus’ quest in The Odyssey (although both feature a hero seeking

a love interest pursued by an illegitimate suitor), they do coalesce into an epic voyage. With so many characters, sandboxes, collectibles, and mechanics, the title feels like many games in one — all of which surprise and delight at every turn. Odyssey is one of Nintendo’s most inventive, joyful, and audacious adventures, and one of the marquee games of 2017, a year fast becoming one of the industry’s best.

BY EVAN NORRIS: VG CHARTZ

A closer look at the Champions amiibo

Mipha grants you the Van Ruta Divine Helm (with Swim Speed Up Lv1)

Daruk gifts you the Vah Rudania Divine Helm (with Flame Guard Lv1)

When any of the Divine Helms are equipped with the Ancient Cuirass and Ancient Greaves, you trigge Guardian series weapons*. Enemies’ remaining HP/full HP is also visible like the Champion’s Tunic.

Each amiibo figure also grants randomized in-game materials and weapons, so try it out to see what y

Revali unlocks the Vah Medoh Divine Helm (with Cold Resistance Lv1)

Urbosa gives you the Vah Naboris Divine Helm (with Electricity Resistance Lv1)

er a set bonus, Ancient Proficiency, which increases the attack power of Ancient or

you get!

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