ShiberNyan (The True Bias)

Honestly the best modern pvp mech game. Customization is phenomenal, pvp is a lot of fun, gameplay feels good. Balancing and map designs could be better but it's not so bad that I'd really call it a problem. It's got some problems though, like how the pvpve extraction mode feels stale with a boring map. The menu UI is bloated and confusing (took me a while to find the different game modes, missions, the season pass etc). The base exploration feels unnecessary plus unfinished (NPCs don't even have voiced lines in English dub, though I noticed the Japanese dub does have them). Lastly the store is incredibly greedy. A 50 dollar/euro skin is ridiculous. There's also a 20+ dollar/euro season pass which just amounts to double XP gains and an instant unlock of one of the three mechs you could get for free if you play enough. Right now it's on discount for 13 bucks (for an unspecified amount of time), which is still high imo, but I bought it to support the game. However moving forward I won't be giving them any money unless they ask fairer prices. Also to clarify, it's not P2W. Store contains cosmetics only. However there IS a separate auction store in which players can sell the items they've unlocked, this includes weapons/items for the pvpve mode. However I wouldn't go so far as to say that the pvpve mode is P2W as a result (and rest assured that the pvp modes most certainly aren't). Still, it's bordering on that line. I'd much rather they get rid of that auction store, navigating it is near impossible anyways and it doesn't add anything to the game. It just drags the game down. So the most important parts if the game are very good, and it's a lot of fun. But there's some things on the side that are less than ideal. Hope this review helps.

Binged the entirety of the season in one go and was at the edge of my seat throughout all of it. I wasn't sure how they'd pull it off, but I'm relieved to say it's a worthy follow-up to the first season. It's more Squid Game. There's only one thing involving a specific character that felt a bit forced in the show, only because Netflix and modern media in general is notorious for including such things in just about everything. For those who haven't been living under a rock, you know exactly what I'm talking about. That said, the character is still likable and the 'lecturing' was minimal. Since just about everything else was great, it's easy to overlook this one small issue I had with it. Though I will say that S2 ended a bit too abruptly for my liking. It felt more like a normal episode's ending than a season finale. Especially the detective's arc outside of the games was left at a pretty underwhelming part. I understand that it's essentially just part 1 of a two part arc, but it does make me miss the days when it was normal for tv shows to have 15+ or even 20+ episodes per season (something that Korean tv still does regularly, unlike most shows coming out in the west). Last complaint is that there were quite a number of times where there was an almost comically dramatic zoom-in on something in the frame, to show the viewer what they should focus on. Not the biggest fan of that in terms of camera directing. But overall it's still really good.

It's a relatively faithful adaptation, which is both a good thing and what keeps it from being a good live action tv series. There's a great deal of bad directing and acting, making it really painful to watch (I hate having to say this, I still appreciate all the hard work that was put into this by all those involved, but these are my honest thoughts). Especially the camera angles are very awkward. I also can't tell what demographic this is supposed to appeal to. It's too gory for kids but too goofy for teens and adults. I feel like it would have been better if it either embraced the goofiness and turned out to be like a modern day Power Rangers type of show that especially appeals to kids, or a darker/more grounded take on the source material for a more mature audience. But as it is now, I believe this series will very quickly be dropped within the first couple of minutes by anyone who isn't already a One Piece fan. It just doesn't meet the modern standards of live action films and series. Action scenes and CGI are pretty great. So are the set and costume design. The story also has a nice flow to it. It does change a few things from the source material, but this is to be expected plus I consider this to be totally fine. I really want this to be successful, so I hope that the following seasons more so meet the quality standards of the modern filming industry. If they can pull that off, this would be one of the best live action manga/anime adaptations ever done.