Magpie Gamer

Intro: This is a series on old dinosaur movies. Specifically, I am looking at anything released before 1990; before Jurassic Park revolutionized cinema with its CGI animation. I will not be covering anything "dinosaur-adjacent", such as kaiju monsters like Godzilla or the creature from The Giant Behemoth, which are perhaps inspired by dinosaurs, but clearly not meant to represent any real world genus. I will also be skipping over films that are heavily dependent on "borrowed" footage from other films, such as the Valley of the Dragons / Prehistoric Valley . Also known as: The Valley Of The Mists The Valley Where Time Stood Still Gwangi's Revenge - The Valley of the Dinosaurs Runtime: 1 hr 36 min Background: The Valley of Gwangi is a 1969 American film and the last dinosaur-themed movie to use stop-motion effects by Ray Harryhausen. Willis O'Brien, who was responsible for the effects in 1933's King Kong, had planned to make The Valley o...

I am still very new to Fire Emblem; Three Houses was my first foray into the franchise and initially I wasn't interested in Engage at all. The gameplay in the trailers looked fun, but there didn't seem to be a storyline and the new art style was too ostentatious for my taste. First impressions are often wrong though, and after watching some YouTubers playing Engage, I decided to pick up a copy as an impulse buy. Gameplay One thing Engage does really well over Three Houses is balancing the various units and encouraging diversity on the team. Armored units have better movement for example, while magic users are good for support. The various infantry units each have unique traits and roles now, such as halbediers having guaranteed follow-ups while heroes give the party damage boosts. The weapon triangle from past titles makes a return: sword > Axe > Lance > sword; Martial arts beats thief, mage, and archer. The triangle further discourages class homogeneity ...

Rune Factory is a fantasy farming sim series with combat and dungeon crawling. You tame monsters and then put them to work on your farm or ride them around town and into battle. Rune Factory 5 is the series first foray into 3D and it is a downgrade from its predecessor - almost a clone of Rune Factory 4 - in the best and worst ways possible. Fundamentally RF5 is the same game - dungeons, fighting, farming, socializing, dating, and learning new recipes are all here and mostly unchanged, but the mechanics are more awkward in 3D. The camera auto-sets to a top-down perspective when farming, which wouldn't have been so bad if I could use the D-pad to move the farmer. Instead I am forced to use the analogue stick, which causes the player character to slide a short distance forwards rather than coming to an immediate halt; I lost so many valuable crops to this. I still had a reasonably good time despite the bugs and unfinished state of the game. Time moves much slower in RF5 tha...

I don't know much about musical theory, nor am I a musically inclined person. However, I do love to listen to video game soundtracks. They can be a powerful listening experiences in their own right, or be as evocative as the scores composed for film. Each of these posts will feature a sampling of music tracks from a single game title, or series/franchise in some rare cases. A complete list of these can be found on the Video Game Music page. Composer: Shoji Meguro Singer: Yumi Kawamura and Lyn Inaizumi Release Date: September 2016 A high school student known by the nickname "Joker" is forced to transfer to a new school in Tokyo after being put on probation for assault. Joker and his friends then became a vigilante group known as the "Phantom Thieves" who can traverse a supernatural realm born from the subconscious desires of humans. In this realm it is possible to steal the malevolent intent from the hearts of individuals using physical manifesta...

I don't know much about musical theory, nor am I a musically inclined person. However, I do love to listen to video game soundtracks. They can be a powerful listening experiences in their own right, or be as evocative as the scores composed for film. Each of these posts will feature a sampling of music tracks from a single game title, or series/franchise in some rare cases. A complete list of these can be found on the Video Game Music page. Composer: Ryan Amon, Tsukasa Saitoh, Yuka Kitamura, Nobuyoshi Suzuki, Cris Velasco, Michael Wandmacher North American Release Date: March 2015 In the decrepit Victorian-era inspired city of Yharnam, a blood-borne disease is transforming the residents into literal beasts. A Hunter must slay the beasts to unravel the cities mysteries and end the plague. The soundtrack was composed by a mix of Japanese and Western composers, using a 65-piece orchestra and a 32-member choir. The Hunter | (Character Theme) Cleric Beast | (Boss Th...

Intro: This is a series on old dinosaur movies. Specifically, I am looking at anything released before 1990; before Jurassic Park revolutionized cinema with its CGI animation. I will not be covering anything "dinosaur-adjacent", such as kaiju monsters like Godzilla or the creature from The Giant Behemoth, which are perhaps inspired by dinosaurs, but clearly not meant to represent any real world genus. I will also be skipping over films that are heavily dependent on "borrowed" footage from other films, such as the Valley of the Dragons / Prehistoric Valley . Also known as: Runtime: 1 hr 31 min Background: The Land That Time Forgot is a 1974 British-American co-production based on the 1918 novel of the same name. American International Pictures provided the bulk of the budget and filming was done at the Shepperton Studios in England. Some landscape scenes were filmed at a disused claypit in Reading, Berkshire. The prehistoric animals were hand puppets d...