When it comes to shonen manga, anime and games, there are few with as much knowledge and love as the Shonen Otaku. Join me as we look at the settings and characters that give us our favorite stories in both anime and gaming.
Like Final Fantasy, one of these final battles had to be from the Legend of Zelda series. The franchise consistently cranks out the best bosses in gaming, almost always requiring problem-solving and good old-fashioned skill with a variety of weapons. Every final battle in each Zelda game is memorable in its own way, with multiple phases and ever-creative transformations that make the climax to each story an epic one, barring the ones, in the words of Chris Hoffman, "in which Link looks like he chugged a gallon of drain cleaner."
The final battle of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is a classic for the generations, and its ending is critical in the overall Zelda timeline, but technology has moved on and I find that the battle of Twilight Princess, arguably the second most acclaimed game in the franchise, is even more satisfying.
J-Stars Victory Versus and Senran Kagura 2 have been my two
most anticipated games of 2015. Both are
centered around extreme power-clashing speedline-using shonen badasses on powerful
handheld systems, but since J-Stars came out far sooner I counted the days for
its release first. That is, until Bandai
Namco told me it wouldn’t be released physically on the Playstation Vita.
Apparently Bandai Namco hasn’t learned what XSEED did after
the first Senran Kagura: that forcing customers to download a multi-gigabyte
full-retail game on their expensive (especially on the Vita) memory cards
through a digital distribution service that may not keep it forever is a really fucking stupid idea! I wouldn't even be that offended if they didn't release it physically on two other systems and showed that they're perfectly capable of doing so! Fuck you Bandai Namco!
At that point I should have stopped counting the days and not
given in to their stupid fucking digital-only fucking didn’t-learn-anything
fucking run-by-lobotomized-chimps fucking bullshit, but if I didn’t review a
game synonymous with the word “shonen” I might have this blog’s title called
out for being a lie. So I got the damn
thing, with only a Vita theme based on the game that plays its (admittedly
awesome) theme song as the background music as compensation for the lack of a
physical release’s pre-order bonus. Fuck you Bandai Namco.
If you can get over J-Stars Victory Versus’ slap in the face
for Vita owners and focus on the game as it is, then it’s an amazing action
game and for some will likely beat out Super Smash Brothers 4. The big question is whether or not you can
honestly do that.
