Tag Archives: religion

Midnight Sanctuary, The (PC) Review

Developer: CAVYHOUSE | Publisher: Sony UNTIES || Overall: 8.5/10

Note: This is a non-spoilery review.

The Midnight Santuary from CAVYHOUSE and Sony Music Entertainment’s game publishing arm, UNTIES, is not unlike a very long anime movie.  At the beginning I sort of thought “why isn’t this a movie?”  By the end of it, I discovered the subject matter tends to be a bit “mature,” the story muddled at times, and the art style quirky; this is really the only format that suits it.  It is obvious that the way the story is presented and experienced, it wouldn’t really “work” as a movie.  What The Midnight Sanctuary ends up feeling like is if you took a Japanese RPG and sucked all of the “game” parts out of it.

While the storytelling is linear, there are portions that are non-linear.  You experience a major plot point, then the story splinters into multiple points, allowing you to “explore” Daiusu Village as you see fit, and then finally culminating in another major story point.  Rinse and repeat and you have the flow of the visual novel.  There are no puzzles, quizzes, or anything of the sort.  You’re really just experiencing the story at your pace and having a little “freedom” to experience what you will.  In this sense, it can hold your attention, as it gives a little interactivity in discovering the mystery that lies beneath the “happy” atmosphere of Daiusu Village.

The general story is in regards to the village itself inviting the main character Hamomuru Tachibana, a pastor from a larger city, to document the history of the village.  The village is unique in that it was built by Christians, but their form of Christianity splintered, observing the “Crane Wife” as a Saint who will one day return to rapture them, not unlike a female version of Jesus Christ.  While the story isn’t really about actual religion, there are references to scripture and events in the Bible.  Mix in some good ol’ Japanese “anime stuff” and you’ve got an interesting story that will clock in at about 2.5 hours or so.

The most readily apparent thing about the visual novel is its art style.  Much of it is very simplistic and stylized to look like something that didn’t get out of an early phase of development.  Most noticeable is that many elements of characters or items are transparent.  Behind the scenes at all times is a complex mural of the Crane Wife and some other textures, that changes filters and colors depending on when and where the story takes you.  The mural is very complex and it is hard to focus and see what you’re looking at; I often just gave up, but generally assumed it was a person or something utilizing those transparency effects.  The symbolism of using this effect to begin with was lost on me if there was any particular reason for this choice.  Many of the generic villagers shared the same model, but had a different bandana to signify who they were.  There are several “non-transparent” people who look like a “normal” anime 3D character, though most expressions are vapid and they move around like puppets.  A couple of characters look a bit alien with their lanky arms and huge hands.  The girl Eku also had one of her eyes half closed like she hadn’t slept for a couple days, which accentuated the weirdness.  Additionally, whenever she turned around she would almost pirouette; this is just one example of the odd animation that is seen in this title.

The voice acting is exclusively Japanese, but there are subtitles.  The voice acting is very good from what I could tell, but since I couldn’t understand it, I would just read ahead in the story really quickly and skip a lot of the talking.  Understanding the emotion of the story is more likely if you listened to lines the whole way through, so its definitely an important factor of enjoyment if you’re going to stick with it.

The story was a lot longer than I thought it would last, but I suppose that is part of the value in this title.  It didn’t feel like there was much that needed to be cut out, but the major plot points could maybe have been skipped to in order to leave out the filler.  While the story gets a bit gruesome at times, it doesn’t get gory nor really crazy, though it seems like it easily could have.  Most of the locations in the town are visited several times, so there’s no lack of re-use of assets.  The story takes a few “interesting,” if not shocking, turns.  Another curious aspect is that you are actually given a character who is referenced as “The Watcher,” but outside of a few scenes you are entirely attached to the hip of Hamomuru.  There’s also not much of a conclusion for The Watcher, though they explain the character a bit at some point.

My foray into the “visual novel” genre is very cursory, but it seems like something I could get behind if it were on my iPhone.  There’s very low effort involved in controls and it seems like it would be a nice thing to pick up for a few minutes to kill.  However, on a PC it feels like a bit of a waste of time since I have to be sitting in the chair at the keyboard controlling it.  As of now, it is only available on PS4, Switch and Steam.  A VR version is coming out later on Steam, and is already out on PS4.  While I wouldn’t suggest this title for children, teens/young adults will probably get a bit spooked out with it.

Squacklecast Episode 28 – “So Long, Mr. Boner”

This entry is part 28 of 38 in the series The Squacklecast

Episode 28!

Happy Founder’s Day everyone!  It has been 22 years since anyone last cared about it, but TODAY is the day we do!

Today we have Unnamedhero joining us on the show.

We talk about the Angry Birds movie trailer a bit, which leads to a discussion about reality shows, somehow.

The Pope is in town and we talk about that a little bit.  I don’t care about religion that much, so here’s some picture.

 

funnypopefrancis

Oh, Pope Francis!  You so great!

Twenty Eleven or Two thousand and eleven?  We spend like 10 minutes talking about how to say numbers.

We skip to John Boehner and talk about how big of a cry baby he is.

johnboehnercryingpope

 I’m gonna miss one thing about Mr. Boner.  Well, two.

We go into the Republican debates/controversies a bit.  I bring up my Twitter interactions with random crazy conservatives who are outraged over renamed mountains and clocks.

We also announce the new Apple clothing store, iRack.  Only black shirts.  Then somehow Billy knows random actors who wear all black.

We go over some presidential predictions, and then go into some Fall TV talk.  Gotham is back.  This leads into a bigger discussion about plotlines and story in comic book TV shows and movies.  James Bond stuff comes up.  Billy saw the new Fantastic Four.  We talk about it.

We go over super heroes and what their party affiliations would probably be.  The consensus may surprise you on some of the famous heroes!

That’s it for today!  Hopefully the next episode isn’t too far away…

My Decision to Receive Christ As My Saviour

Note: This was in the back of a bible.

Confessing to God that I am a sinner, and believing that the Lord Jesus Christ died for my sins on the cross and was raised for my justification, I do now receive and confess Him as my personal saviour.

Name: Dave “Satan” Poobond
Date: 6/6/6

This is such a crock of shit, because it was Jesus’ fault, not mine for dying at the cross.  He was the one going around praising religion and crap that got him into deep shit and nailed to fucking planks.  Don’t make ME take the blame for it, you bastard prophets that wrote the Bible!

Learn how to spell savior, at least!

Squacklecast Episode 11 – “Team Cruise vs. Team Jesus”

This entry is part 11 of 38 in the series The Squacklecast

Hey everyone!  Did you like the new rap song I made?  Dinosaur Habitat and DJ Davy A are my alternate nicknames for music creation.

Anyway, this week we scratch the surface of the Katie Holmes/Tom Cruise marriage split!

5 Years is a long time for a marriage that wasn’t going to work.

Just what the hell is scientology?  Something that breaks apart marriages, obviously (see above).  That’s all I could understand from the Wikipedia article.

What is Scientology?

Mormonism?  You get your own planet?  I don’t know if that’s right…

In heaven, everyone wears these awesome fire kicks:

Fire Kicks

Rock of Ages lost money, no shocker there.

Tom Cruise a short lumpy lookin guy, huh?

SmallTom

Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder

Who wouldn’t want to watch the chaos that ensues around Katie Holmes life when there’s a boring reality show about Clint Eastwood’s wife and daughter, not even with him in it.

Ringer was canceled after a season.

Jim Carrey dropped out of the Farrelly brother’s latest movie.  Wait, how do you say Farrelly?  Peter Far-LEE? Bobby Far-Re-Lee?

Magic Mike makes male stripping look cool…?

More Tyler Perry bashing this week.  Wait, someone recorded that Madea bullshit as stage plays and thought it was good enough to make it into a movie?  They couldn’t see that it was shitty before they spent money on making it?

Fur-assic Park is my Jurassic Park parody.

Anne Frank: Not Remembered Too Well is the first movie featuring the grandpa from the Fur-assic Park movie.

Who said anything about DATING Katie Holmes?  I’d just do her and call it a life.

Katie Holmes

Buff Bagwell will be my choice to play Tom Cruise on the made-for-TV movie about Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise.

Buff Bagwell

See ya next week!

If College Students Wrote the Bible

If College Students Wrote the Bible…

– The Last Supper would have been eaten the next morning – cold.

– The Ten Commandments would actually be only five; double spaced and written in large font.

– A new edition would be published every two years in order to limit reselling.

– Forbidden fruit would have been eaten because it wasn’t cafeteria food.

– Paul’s letter to the Romans would become Paul’s E-mail to abuse@romans.gov.

– Reason Cain killed Abel; they were roommates.

– Reason why Moses and followers walked the desert for 40 years; they didn’t want to ask directions and look like freshmen.

– Instead of God creating the world in six days and resting on the seventh, he would have put it off until the night before it was due and then pulled an all-nighter.

Joke #12880

The minister looked at his congregation and said, “Brothers and sisters, today my sermon will be about liars.  I refer to Matthew, chapter thirty, verse five.  How many of you are familiar with it?”

As the minister looked around, half of the people before him raised their hands.  “You are the people I want to address my sermon to,” announced the minister.  “There is no Matthew, chapter thirty, verse five.”

Dave’s Notes: The Tale of Peter Rabbit

This entry is part 3 of 5 in the series Dave's Notes

Peter Rabbit is this asshole rabbit who had a stupid dad that got caught by this upstanding, taxpaying, well-groomed farmer named Mrs. McGregor.  She wore a bra that was D cup even though she was plainly a C.

Peter Rabbit had a negligent mother named Mrs. Rabbit who thinks its a good idea to leave her 4 sons Peter, Mopsy, Flopsy and Cotton-Tail alone while she fucked the baker in RabbitTown.

Since Peter is an asshole, he disobeys his mother and abandons his brothers to the horrors of the forest while they lug blackberries back and forth.  Mrs. Rabbit believed in child labor after all.

So, Peter goes onto Mrs. McGregor’s farm and shits in her prize-winning flowers.  Then he eats her lovingly planted cabbage, radishes, cucumbers, and doesn’t even give her a reach around.

Mrs. McGregor, already dealing with the saggy boobie problem that plagues her family hereditarily, tried to kill that no-good Peter Rabbit and do us all a favor by doing so.

Peter Rabbit unfortunately gets away and hides in Mrs. McGregor’s toolshed where she keeps her can of holy water laying around unprotected.  Not only does Peter Rabbit desecrate Mrs. McGregor’s farm, but he tarnishes the sanctity of Mrs. McGregor’s religion by pissing in it while he’s in her holy water.

Not only that, but the pervert Peter Rabbit lost all his clothing while he was being chased by Mrs. McGregor (very convenient, don’t you think?), so his sweaty ball sweat was integrating with the holy water.

Peter Rabbit sneezed, giving away his tactical position in the dark shed and busted through the toolshed window.  Great, that’s going to cost money to replace.

Peter Rabbit tried to find a way out from the farm after the vandalism and indecency he subjected to Mrs. McGregor.  He couldn’t, so he started crying like a bitch.  He saw a bunch of other dumb shit that didn’t help him get away.

Eventually he found the gate he came in from and ran back home, leaving Mrs. and Mr. McGregor to clean up the mess he left.  When Peter got home he took a big shit and went to bed.  His family ate blackberries, bread, and milk, cause they were poor.

Peter got away with murder and was rewarded for it.