To Abuse a Position of Power

Last night, Phineas and Ferb made a comeback with two new episodes after a few months of reruns. In the first segment, Candace is elected town mayor for a day as a result of an essay she wrote on (you guessed it) busting her brothers. But due to her status of no apparent knowledge of politics, she lets her status as mayor get to her head and eventually uses her position as her latest attempt to chew out her brothers, Phineas and Ferb, who have used modern tools to recreate a pioneer town in their backyard. Meanwhile, the real mayor, Roger Doofenshmirtz, takes his time off to play golf with his brother, the evil Heinz Doofenshmirtz. Since the good doctor finds golf tedious, he creates a device capable of speeding up time, apparently well aware of the drawbacks, but for his sake anything to finish the game faster. As usual, his inventions coincidentally clash with Phineas and Ferb's activities, so for those of you who haven't seen the episode, your prediction of what will happen is not a bad guess. What happened in the end was actually what I guessed would happen.

And in the second portion, when Phineas and Ferb decide on what to do for another fun day, Stacy feels neglected by Candace's persistence of wasting her time trying to rat them out and makes Candace choose between her as a best friend or continue her futile efforts to bust her brothers. Candace chooses the latter while Phineas and Ferb build a seemingly simple lemonade stand, but decide to expand their franchise and Candace does not notice at first, having been bummed by her decision. Ultimately, her friendship with Stacy is put to the test near the end of the episode and after the outcome... well, let's just say that one can only hope she'll stop wasting her summer away and let things come naturally.

So, there we have it. One of the greatest TV shows of all time has finally bounced back with new episodes. Now, what about that summer 2010 event that was said to come?

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Reshiram and Zekrom

Evidently, according to the official Pokémon site, not only is an English release date for Pokémon Black and Pokémon White expected for Spring 2011, but it appears that their cover Pokémon have had their English names revealed as well... Reshiram and Zekrom. In that case, these two legendary creatures have the honors of being the first fifth generation Pokémon to have their English names revealed, which are pretty much the same as their original Japanese names. Now here's the twist. Reshiram, the white-colored angelic-looking Pokémon is currently the cover of Pokémon Black, while Zekrom, the black-colored demonic-looking Pokémon is currently the cover of Pokémon White. If this holds true, then for the first time ever, we've got us some Pokémon games named for the color of the background instead of the cover Pokémon, leading to something you don't see every day! Odd, isn't it?

...I still want Pokémon Black...

Let's Hear It For Versatility

Two days ago, we received word from Square Enix of the overseas release dates of the upcoming PSP game Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep, September 7, 2010 for North America and September 10, 2010 for Europe. To make things even more interesting, we have also been provided with five new all-star voices, including Mark Hamill, Willa Holland, Jesse McCartney, Leonard Nimoy, and James Woods. Judging on the English trailer, we are given the impression that Leonard Nimoy, famously known as Spock from Star Trek, has graciously provided the voice of antagonist Master Xehanort. We have also assumed that Jesse McCartney has provided the voice of Ventus, as he did for Roxas in Kingdom Hearts II and Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, but we'll have to wait and see. But what certainly surprised me and my brother is that Mark Hamill, famously known for his role of Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker from the original Star Wars more than 30 years ago, has provided a voice for the Kingdom Hearts saga. And having already voiced the main antagonist from Avatar: The Last Airbender, Fire Lord Ozai, we should certainly praise the man for being what we call versatile. And according to speculation, we should expect the following lineup for who does what voice:

Mark Hamill - Master Eraqus
Willa Holland - Aqua
Jesse McCartney - Ventus
Leonard Nimoy - Master Xehanort
James Woods - Hades (need we say more?)

Cherish the Thought

Here's a slide show of my favorite original character of mine, Bow the Cat! DISCLAIMER: The song used is "One Heart" from the album of the same name by Celine Dion and as such, I do NOT own it. Therefore, credit goes to Celine Dion. The song is not mine, but everything else is. Enjoy!


And here's another slide show which has mostly the same images, but a different song is used. DISCLAIMER: The song is "Ma Belle Evangeline" from Disney's The Princess and the Frog and as such, I do NOT own it. Therefore, copyright goes to Disney and credit goes to Jim Cummings, the voice of Ray the firefly who sings the song, and to the movie's staff. The song is not mine, but everything else is. Enjoy!

Black and White This!

Evidently, screen shots from Japanese sources have recently revealed the new starter Pokémon from the upcoming fifth generation games, Black and White. According to their classifications, the Grass-type is listed as a Grass Snake Pokémon, the Fire-type is a Fire Pig Pokémon, and the Water-type is a Sea Otter Pokémon. And as expected, their abilities are Overgrow, Blaze, and Torrent respectively, of course, of course. But then again, not everything has been considered official yet, but we'll soon enough when that time comes. Till then, happy catching!

Brutal Mario RPG

Those of you fans who derive interest in Super Mario World hacks, here's some news. If you remember, I stated in an earlier post that Japanese hackers are capable of surpassing our skills, particularly with hacks such as the Vip Wall Mix series and Brutal Mario. In this case, I am discussing Brutal Mario, a Japanese Super Mario World hack created independently by the Japanese user Carol, who is apparently a genius with ASM. Earlier demos hinted that while level designing was not way up on the hot list, the ASM in the hack more than made up for it with loads of custom bosses, several from video games that were only released in Japan. But now it seems that Carol has given Brutal Mario an entirely new makeover, as hinted by the newest screenshots uploaded to the VIP Wiki website, and is now giving the hack even more of an RPG style than ever before. I always did think that the boss battle with Zeal from Chrono Trigger would be a full-on RPG battle and it looks like it darn may well be with this new ASM enhancement! Also, the file select now has an ASM feature that keeps track of the current time spent playing, a typical RPG feature. Looks like this is still gonna be one hell of a hack when it is finally released in its entirety! Here's to you, Carol! Keep at it!