574 replies to this topic

[Dark Lord Revan]

There's huge gaps between our post dates, but somehow we just survive lol.

I hope you guys are joking about AGE. Granted, there's nothing WRONG with it per se, and my brother loves it.

Then again he's 11 yrs old. Its a Level 5 anime. And its very obviously a Level 5 anime. We have deus ex machina moments from the AGE system, and the solutions are just as simplistic and childish (what the heck, a spiral beam thing?). The story is serious, true, but the actual dialogue is rather cliche and simple. Character design is typical Level 5. Flit is an ultra-cliche shonen character and only 14 years old. Talk about child soldier.

All that just means that Level 5 is doing a good job, because its following the formula that made its productions like Inuzuma eleven popular and a great show for kids. But its clearly not for people our age :/

Maybe i should just loosen up, but i couldnt get past watching the 6th episode. Im just going to wait till we see the next era, where flit will supposedly be 39, and perhaps the tone of the show will change.


Or watch the SEED remaster/remake in Jan. Not sure how much is going to be changed, or not, but the first season wasnt bad.

Well, for games ive played pretty much everything there is to play in this big season, except MW3. Which was hell on my uni exams...im still playing arkham city, skyrim and AC: revelations to complete everything. I thought about buying blazblue at one point, but i'll probably wait till i can get a PSV for it.

[Re4_wesker]

I hope you guys are joking about AGE. Granted, there's nothing WRONG with it per se, and my brother loves it.

Then again he's 11 yrs old. Its a Level 5 anime. And its very obviously a Level 5 anime. We have deus ex machina moments from the AGE system, and the solutions are just as simplistic and childish (what the heck, a spiral beam thing?). The story is serious, true, but the actual dialogue is rather cliche and simple. Character design is typical Level 5. Flit is an ultra-cliche shonen character and only 14 years old. Talk about child soldier.

Oh yeah AGE is nothing special currently. I still keep an eye on it though. I'm kind of hoping they give us a few underlying themes that appeal to the older audiences. Every now and then though we do get something somewhat interesting. For example:

****Spoiler****

It has become apparent that the UE are most likely either just mobile suits or mobile dolls. Either way, the UE are controlled by humans. From what i've gathered, Grodek is the only one who has figured this out. Due to this, he has been telling the other characters not to think about what they are fighting and he is trying to make them think that they are still fighting aliens. This gives Grodek a darker side to his character that makes him far more interesting than a lot of the other characters.

****Spoiler Ends****

Maybe i should just loosen up, but i couldnt get past watching the 6th episode. Im just going to wait till we see the next era, where flit will supposedly be 39, and perhaps the tone of the show will change.

I'm kind of hoping things pick up in the 2nd generation/era to. My biggest issue with this series so far though is that I think they are trying to do too much with their number of episodes. Assuming that they are aiming for 50 episodes, we are looking at only 16-17 episodes per era. I don't think that is enough to develop all of the characters they have. Regardless, era 2 will hopefully be better than the 1st era. Woolf kind of reminds me of Dante with his era 2 outfit and seeing an older Flit will hopefully be far more interesting than what he was like in his youth.

Edited by Re4_wesker, 01 January 2012 - 08:26 AM.

[Stargazer]

I'm not that excited for a HD remastering of Seed. The worst thing about Seed has never been it being in SD.

[Dark Lord Revan]

I will probably try it again after the era change. Whatever episode that is.

I mentioned the SEED HD remaster partially in jest. Looking at the PV's, there is nothing new added at all, and they achieved widescreen for most scenes by cropping, not redrawing. Watching the first episode confirms it. It looks exactly as if you just upscaled the old episodes. I hope they don't do this with other series, there are far better things they can air.

[Stargazer]

The opening is slightly different, and apparently Ep 3 will have some redrawn scenes. I agree, but I guess that Sunrise is running out of fresh ideas, haha.

[Re4_wesker]

I find it somewhat ludicrous that Seed is getting a HD remake personally. Like SG said, SD wasn't the problem with Seed. I suppose they could cut down on some of the stock footage this time around but from the sounds of it they only seem to be changing a few things around. It annoys me that Seed would receive an HD remake when manga such as Crossbone Gundam could easily be made into anime if they tried. I don't think the problem is material really. I just think Sunrise isn't willing to look. releasing Seed again would be a lot easier than starting a completely new series I suppose. I'm just waiting for Gundam Unicorn Episode 5 to come around in a few months time for my Gundam fix. That and i'm waiting for this apparent Anime version of Gundam Origin that is going to be created. -_-

Edited by Re4_wesker, 03 January 2012 - 07:50 AM.

[Dark Lord Revan]

There are rumours of a new series being worked on now actually. Releasing a HD version of seed and out-sourcing to Level-5 could be a way to keep Gundam on the quarterly portfolios till they can get a new series ready. Unicorn doesnt apply because its not serialized. Of course, another reason for the Level-5 Gundam project is to expand merchandising to a wider age range.

If there is a new series, it will probably be the One year war remake (not just a remaster). They could do crossbone, but i think that will most likely see animation as an OVA rather than series, like Unicorn.


BTW, if anyone actually wants to know more about the SEED remaster, i gave the 1st ep a watch. First, the whole episode was indeed just cropped from SD. There are a few additional scenes in the OP, nothing special. Characters seem to be 'outlined' more compared to the old animation, I suppose to make them appear more obvious, but its not consistent. Because of that, its painfully obvious what was redrawn and what wasnt, anyone who never watched the show would be able to tell.

Even then, these 'redraws' only include character outlines, so all scenes from the original are untouched. This actually makes the show look horrible at times, because it's basically SD animation expanded to HD.

The only thing i could tell that was totally redone other than scenes in the OP was the commercial break cut-in showing athrun and lacus. Honestly, it makes it all the more jarring since right after is another horrible looking expanded SD scene.

IMO, its a weird choice to show miguel with his custom orange GINN in the OP, yet in the show itself its still the old grey-green version. Of course the orange is also just a recolor, no sign of his personal markings, shield, etc.

The whole thing just smacks of being half-done, honestly. Even if its just a remaster, its not reached the standard of what I'd call a remaster. Half-assed job, the Zeta remakes for example were done up much better than this.

Edit: I also just noticed the old pre-commercial break cut-in shows Strike with all 3 striker packs equipped instead of each one separately. Its something else I guess.

Edited by Dark Lord Revan, 09 January 2012 - 05:45 PM.

[Re4_wesker]

If there is a new series, it will probably be the One year war remake (not just a remaster). They could do crossbone, but i think that will most likely see animation as an OVA rather than series, like Unicorn.

Crossbone Gundam would actually fit really well in a format like that. The manga is the right size for it that's for sure.

Well I was just throwing together a post for another forum where we are discussing Gundam AGE so I though why not post it hear to. It's essentially my overview and general thoughts on Gundam AGE up to episode 15. Don't read it if you haven't gotten that far. Also, keep in mind that because the series isn't over yet my opinion of the series may change. This is mostly just my views on AGE-1 specifically. Oh and if anyone wants me to elaborate on anything just ask. Oh and DLR, if you aren't going to watch all of AGE-1, I would suggest just watching episodes 13-15. They are the most important in the AGE-1 segment honestly.

Spoiler

The Plot: Okay, there's no way around it. Pacing in AGE-1 is terrible. Now if this were any other Gundam series I could forgive it because they aren't even half way done with their series but with Gundam AGE they are aiming for 3 different time frames in the span of 50 episodes each with its own set of characters. That being said, you really can't afford to waste time in Gundam AGE. Unfortunately, AGE-1 does this a great deal.

That being said though, AGE-1's last 3 episodes were by far the best out of AGE-1. They were a nice conclusion to AGE-1 and directly set things up for AGE-2. That being said, I can't even really make fun of the UE anymore by calling them "Giant Mech Space Dragons". The setup for the UE/Veigan's in AGE-1 was excellent and I can't help but be reminded of the Jupiter Empire from Crossbone Gundam. Heck, the entire conclusion to AGE-1 really felt like an ending that I would see in a Universal Century Gundam series. There was no happy ending and certain characters didn't escape without repercussions as others have in other series (i'm looking at you Gundam Seed). AGE-1's pacing was terrible but ended well. I can only hope that AGE-2 and 3 are handled better than AGE-1 was.

The Characters: I have mixed feelings with the characters we were given in AGE-1. The best characters in AGE-1 were clearly Grodek and Woolf. Grodek was a character who had good intentions in the series but kept information away from the other protagonists so his plan would work. He was by far the most interesting character in AGE-1. Woolf is also pretty good as a protagonist. I only wish we saw more of him in AGE-1. So what about the rest of the cast? Well Flit may go down as one of the worst Gundam protagonists ever (unless AGE-2 makes him awesome) and aside from that, what is there to say? Only a handful of characters were given any serious attention. I could write a good few paragraphs about Flit, Grodek, or Woolf but what could I say about the other characters? Well Largan is......a good soldier that has a thing for Millais? Yeah.... and Dique is Flit's friend that helps around the ship......Yeah......not a whole lot to say about the other characters. Which leads to my biggest issue with AGE-1's characters.

My biggest problem with AGE-1's cast though stems from the limited time they have to develop all of the characters. I know you could argue that we will be seeing a lot of these characters again (Flit, Woolf, Millais, etc.) but the versions we will be seeing will be much older. It's like jumping from point A to point F. What happened during B,C,D, and E? I can only hope that when they do this time jump that they give proper backstory for what happened to these characters in between.

Now the only Antagonist really worth mentioning was Decil. Decil will probably be an ongoing Antagonist in Gundam AGE atleast for AGE-1 and AGE-2. That being said, Decil's character isn't that bad for a villain. That is, he won't be bad as long as they keep him and continue developing him. Heck, he's already surpassed Ribbons Almark in my books. True, this isn't very hard to do but I can't help but notice distinct similarities between the two characters. Regardless, it's nice to see that they did a better job with the antagonists this time around.

Music/Art/Mobile Suit Designs: The majority of the music in AGE-1 is really bland and disappointing. The Opening and Ending themes are alright but the actual music is terrible. The only theme worth mentioning would probably be whatever was playing during the final showdown between Decil and Flit. Nevertheless, this is only AGE-1 so they still have more than half of the series to redeem the music.

Now the art for Gundam AGE in general is atrocious. I don't understand how we could go from Gundam 00 (which was generally okay when it came to art and design) to something so bad. Really what I get from a lot of scenes is the feeling of laziness from the artists. Now in some cases i'm okay with it but my last straw was the last part of the final Flit vs Decil fight, where we see a combination of bad teleporting movements from the AGE Gundam and bad sound effects. What a way to ruin a excellent fight. Unfortunately, I don't see this getting any better either.....

I wasn't really impressed with any of the Mobile suits AGE-1 offered either to be honest. The AGE Gundam is pretty standard and I can't really like it nor dislike it. It's variations, the Titus and the Spallow didn't well catch my eye either. The two suits that did catch my eye were the G-Exes and the Zedas. The Zedas wasn't a really nice looking suit but the Zedas R from AGE-2 looks a lot better. Oh and the Genoace is going to go down in Gundam history as being even worse than the Leo from Gundam Wing. Really I'm just waiting for AGE-2 for better designs.

Final thoughts: AGE-1 wasn't really that good but that doesn't mean the series will be just as bad. AGE-1's conclusion opens up a lot of possibilities as to where the story can go. I simply hope they don't screw up the momentum that they have managed to build. Also, here's some final thoughts on strange things that haven't been explained yet in AGE-1:

-Angel and Nora being attacked: Clearly the Veigans are out for revenge on humanity but that still doesn't explain their actions. The time frame between the attack on Angel and Nora is huge for know explainable reason. Also, when they hit Nora, the Veigans didn't go straight for the colonies power plants. In episode 2, Millais notices that if the UE wanted to destroy the colony as quickly as possible that is how they would do it. That being said, the Veigans would be able to acquire such information fairly easily especially with Yark Dore's knowledge. Clearly they weren't there just to kill off civilians and people. Furthermore, Flit was there for both attacks. Perhaps the Veigans were specifically targeting Flit or perhaps to be more specific, The Age System.

-The loss of a Shuttle in Ep.1: During episode 1, Flit uses the fact that a Shuttle was probably attacked by the UE near there colony as proof that they will hit Nora next. Now ignoring how stupid it was for Flit to reveal this to his teacher and classmates, why exactly was this shuttle hit? The Veigans seem to be pretty choosy with their targets yet they attack a 20 person shuttle? Also, it's worth noting that the 20 people onboard were missing? So was the shuttle destroyed or were the people purposely abducted? Furthermore, why would the Veigans bother? It seems like a pretty small thing to point out but it still seems rather strange.
Spoiler ends

Edited by Re4_wesker, 26 January 2012 - 08:54 AM.

[Dark Lord Revan]

In my mind its not really worth it to try and over-analyse AGE or talk about design choices. AGE, at least to me, is professor layton or inuzuma eleven with mobile suits. It certainly does not, as is not meant to fit remotely into the same mold as any other Gundam series. Trying to explain things in AGE logically is a losing battle when the main character Flit, at 14 yrs old, is piloting a mobile suit that he started building when he was 7.

By the way, AGE is probably not getting the attention sunrise was hoping. Hardcore gundam nuts in Japan want to treat it like G Savior , a gundam title that never existed, and reaction to upcoming AGE games is lukewarm. We'll see after that AGE game gets to sell.


I actually watched more of the SEED remaster. Where they spruced up and redrew frames is still quite obvious, but it wasnt a train wreck piss-poor job like ep1. Might watch more just for kicks. More after the break.

Edited by Dark Lord Revan, 27 January 2012 - 11:52 AM.

[Re4_wesker]

In my mind its not really worth it to try and over-analyse AGE or talk about design choices. AGE, at least to me, is professor layton or inuzuma eleven with mobile suits. It certainly does not, as is not meant to fit remotely into the same mold as any other Gundam series.

I'm simply stating my views on the series. Although I would argue that this series is trying to attract a new fanbase for Gundam (Children mostly). That being said, they often try to tap into a lot of themes that other series have already covered. Flit for example has a relationship with another character that is very similar to Amuro's relationship with Lalah. I don't think I really have to say how it ends either.

By the way, AGE is probably not getting the attention sunrise was hoping. Hardcore gundam nuts in Japan want to treat it like G Savior , a gundam title that never existed, and reaction to upcoming AGE games is lukewarm. We'll see after that AGE game gets to sell.

In all honesty I think AGE should have stayed as just a game. I think if it were only a game it would have a better shot at selling. I think the anime itself is doing more harm than good for the game.

Edit: Episode 16 turned out to be a lot better than expected. I think Gundam AGE may be salvagable yet. They really just have to keep up their momentum.

Edited by Re4_wesker, 31 January 2012 - 08:18 AM.

[Rau Le Creuset]

I was out on youtube and I came across this for those of you who don't want to bother watching ill tell you what it is. It is "Kidou Senshi Gundam Extreme VS" it has all the series from the original Mobile Suit Gundam through to Gundam Unicorn, and as soon as I found out it came out on the PS3 in Japan on the 1st of December 2011, I went straight to playasia and bought it.

[Zexion01]

It has been sometime (letting you all know that Zexion01 still around in one form or another) how's everyone doing, any of you guys heard anything about any news about a new SD Gundam G Gen games, besides the 3d that is? Anime wise, Gundam Age is pretty decent in my opinion. Game wise Mass Effect 3 will be all the craz for me next week finally time to see how the actions I took in the past two games will pay/cost off. Lastly, regarding my Legacy X spinoff I don't think that I have time to get back to it anytime soon (wrighter's block) anyway if I find more reason to resume I will, but I think I'm to rusty now, anyway I look forward to the next ep. of Gundam Unicorn.

[Re4_wesker]

Are any of you guys still following Gundam AGE? I gotta say, AGE-2 has surprised me. It's so much better than AGE-1 in general.

Aside from this I finished a playthrough Mass Effect 3 a few weeks ago. I have mixed feelings about it. I'm sure all of you have heard of the ending controversy so I won't bring it up further. I'm considering picking up Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm Generations and Armored Core V soon. Hopefully neither of the two will dissapoint.

[Zexion01]

Anyone still around here or is this a graveyard now??

[KiraYamatoFreedom]

I check this place out from time to time, though I don't post. 

 

How are you doing?