Lets Watch: Skyland

[Rawhide]

I don't 100% recall if I missed it or not because I'm sick, sorry x_x

If your daughter is the lady of light from the prophecy, then she and I will rule together.

I don't actually know if Mahad counts as our best pilot here. Have we ever seen Wayan and Dahlia piloting something like the Hyperion and doing less of a job then him?

It's implied a lot of times that he is pretty much the best pilot (second only due to what he calls a "technicality"), the problem is that he knows it.

[LaZodiac]

If your daughter is the lady of light from the prophecy, then she and I will rule together.

It's implied a lot of times that he is pretty much the best pilot (second only due to what he calls a "technicality"), the problem is that he knows it.

Ah, right, to both of those things.

[LaZodiac]

And here we are, on the precipice. The final episode of Skyland. Well, lets go.

Episode 26: Kharzem Fortress, part 2

Spoiler

Show

We begin once more with a "last time on Skyland" segment, detailing the events of last episode.

We open proper on seagulls flying over scenario. This is like the third time they've used this shot in an episode and...I'll be honest it still looks great, though this time it's got ominous music playing instead of super calm relaxing piano music.

We cut to the Saint Nazaire...only to cut to Port Angel where Cheng and Vector are working on the Alpha Brig. Cortes radios in, asking them if they've finished cracking his transmission code. No luck, unfortunately. Cortes pushes for him to go faster, because they don't have the time. Vector says he knows, and that he'll try.

Back in Kharzem, specifically in Meela's cube, Lena and Mahad step into the room where we've seen Oslo talk to her last episode. However, where she would be is instead shrouded in...some kind of light source, according to Lena even though it's more shadowy then light. She tries to go through, but it hurts her and sends her cringing backwards. Apparently, it's Anti Seijun...so I guess the ex-solarium works now? I mean, it was sort of established that Jonah got it working, but I figured since he escaped they didn't bother with it. Although considering Oslo's sunbathing habits, it's entirely likely he has enough personal data to make whatever Jonah did. Interesting...

Mahad steps up to the plate, and easily goes through this anti light. Because, you know, human. There's a hatch for where Meela's chair would rise up, but he can't seem to find a way to open it. He says that the light source must be keeping it sealed which...doesn't make too much sense. Unless the idea is that this "light" is coming off FROM the thing that is sealing it, which would make sense.

Mahad shouts a taunt up at Oslo about this being "one of his little inventions" and then adds that two can play at that game. He leaves the light, and takes a few steps back with Lena. He then chucks the boomerang at the device generating the anti light. It does...nothing, so he throws it again. And again and again and again, until finally he manages to damage the machine enough to stop the light. First try!

Mahad and Lena hold hands, and step towards the hatch so they can finally meet their Mom again, after so long. Like two days give or take because they literally saw her in Infiltration. It kind of makes this less impactful, but at the same time it's still a pretty big deal.

The hatch opens, and we start getting this really touching rendition of the main theme plays, as her chair rises up. They all group hug (as much as they can, Meela is still strapped to the chair) and tell her how they were so worried, they thought they'd never see her again, and how they'll never let go of her again. On the one hand, Meela really should of just left with them in Infiltration. On the other hand this is too sweet to nitpick at.

Then Oslo shows up...with a fairly large force of Alpha Brigs. Uh oh.

Back with Cortes, Vector radios in to tell them that they broke the code! Hooray! It turns out Vector and Cheng where...looking for something far more complex then the simple morse code transmissions it was doing. I'll be PERFECTLY honest...this makes 100% sense. You're dealing with a massive, planet wide dictatorship, you expect them to use some elaborate super code phrases. Instead it's just morse code.

But yeah, now that they've broken this code, they know where Kharzem is! So now...a choice. They can go save Mahad and Lena, or participate in this water raid with the other rebel blocks. Cortes' choice is simple. "Tell them to start without us. That should keep the Sphere out of our way for the next few hours."

I really hope you're making the right decision Cortes. A lot of people are going to die because of you wanting to save three people.

Back with those said three people, Oslo is using his powers to levitate Mahad and Lena. Meela threatens him, but Oslo calls her bluff. What can she do to stop this? Her powers are drained, given to his new generation of Brigs. He has the Lady of the Light, and with her he'll become even more powerful then imaginable. He levitates Lena down after letting Mahad drop on his face and grabs her arm. He tells Lena that together, they will rule the world, and that they've lost the battle...forever. He then drags her off.

But then Meela grits her teeth, and gathers up a charge of Seijun energy. She gets out of the bindings that keep her in the chair and levitates into the air! Oslo shouts that this is impossible (and as far as I know it is! Wonder what the deal is). After levitating up into the air and glowing a bit, Meela just...stays there, eyes closed. But I think I know what her plan is. She's absorbing the run off energy from the Brigs, and when Oslo orders them to attack her (which he does) she'll just absorb all her power back.

The Alpha Brigs fire off their Seijun lightning at Meela, and she says "You cannot have my energy. It is mine and I'm taking it BACK!" as the whine of Seijun powers going off gets louder and louder. The Alpha Brigs start getting zapped and falling to the ground, destroyed. Meela's got her power back...and she uses it to create a huge explosion that destroys the top part of they're in completely! Holy crap...what just happened?

Back with Cortes, Wayan reports in that the rebel forces are getting...hammered pretty hard, and asking for an ETA on his arrival. He gives the frustratingly vague answer of "after we save Lena and Mahad." and then orders Wayan to make sure every Mosquito is ready to scramble. Dahlia then radios in saying she's wasting her time guarding Diwan...to which Cortess correctly says "no you're not, she's too dangerous to leave unguarded." Dahlia agrees after a fashion, and wishes Cortes good luck because "They deserve to be a family again."

Then as she turns to leave Diwan shows up, having broken out of her cell somehow. She says "Going to Kharzem? I thank you for the trip." and then she...does a really limp wristed looking thrust forward with her arm that apparently...straight up kills or KOs Dahlia in one strike. Diwan taunts her by saying "You've underestimated my Seijun strength". So apparently Seijun's are also physically stronger as well, then? This is...kind of lame. Not the least of which because Diwa has lost physical fights with Mahad before.

And apparently no one goes to check up on Dahlia at any point after this because they get to Kharzem without anyone noticing that Diwan just palm thrusted Dahlia into next week.

Back with Mahad and friends, the smoke is slooowly clearing. Mahad and Lena are super impressed by the fact that his Mom just set off a tactical nuke of sorts, as they should be. Less impressive though is the fact that Oslo isn't even phased by this, and there appears to be no real damage other then the roof being torn off.

Meela says that Oslo should let them leave, before she REALLY gets mad. Unfortunately for them, Oslo isn't much for capitulation. Especially because, as Oslo says...that was all Meela had. She's completely drained now...and he's right, as she starts to stumble and Mahad has to help keep her standing. Well then. And like...she's not even able to stay up with Mahad's help, so they help her sit down. She says to just give her a minute...but Lena says no, she can't continue fighting in this condition.

Meela wisely agrees, and says that it's Lena's time. She must fight for all of them. Meela gives Lena the last of whatever energy she's got left, telling her to use the strength of their family. Oslo just kinda lets this happen, but he's pretty confident in his skill so I'm not THAT surprised...though it is him faltering a bit in being smart.

Oh wait right, derp. Oslo explains why he HASN'T attacked them yet...and it's because Lena is the Lady of the Light. Can't risk blowing her up when he crushes everyone else. That makes perfect sense actually.

Lena uses her powers to shield Meela and Mahad, and sends them off to another cube so they can be safe from the fighting. And now...it's time for a throw down. Oslo taunts her, saying that she's just giving her family a perfect view for her defeat. Lena counters back with a "don't be so sure of yourself", to which Oslo replies "oh, but I am." which is actually pretty badass. We've never seen Oslo actually fight and LOSE against Lena before, so he can back up his words pretty well here.

Back with Cortes, they're aaaalmost at Kharzem. Cortes says to himself that if they can save Meela, it'll change the face of Skyland and breath new life into the rebellion! I...fail to see how, since she's one person. Yeah, she's the wife of your greatest hero, but I'm...not entirely sure how that'd help change the world. He then orders a launch of the mosquitoes.

Barcode Guardian reports in that the Saint Nazaire has entered their zone, and Oslo simply tells him to deal with it, as he is busy. Busy standing around talking with Lena, but still busy. Come on guys we're half way through with the episode, please fight. I want this.

Instead of an awesome super power battle, we instead get another fire fight between Mosquito's and Shuttles. It's good (and one of the pilots is literally Hulk Hogan in a blue shirt!!!) but it's...not what I expected coming into this.

Oh holy **** Cale! One of the Mosquito pilots is Cale, from the gladiator arena place! That's a nice callback. Wish he'd get his staff out to bust some heads though. Well, he's in a jet so he kind of can't but still!

Anyway, as the Mosquito's fight, the Saint Nazaire proper flies into the rubix cube that is Kharzeem, to find where Mahad and Lena are. Meanwhile inside the ship Diwan is in the docking bay...and there is a single grungy mosquito left. I don't know if this one is just unsuable, or if they literally just...had one left over after setting up every single Mosquito to go. Point is, Diwan can make her escape now.

Oh hey Dahlia's not dead, she was just knocked out! She leaps and Diwan, and in doing so opens up the hanger door. Now it's time for them to have a life and death battle as well.

Baaack with Oslo...and I think he realizes he's COMPLETELY ****ed if Lena actually fights him with all of her strength, cause he's STILL just talking with her. He's currently trying to convince her that we're not so different you and I. Lena is all "...no" so Oslo decides that now, it's finally time to do things "the hard way". He lets loose a wave of Seijun energy that stuns Lena, then lets out a larger wave of visible Seijun energy that...straight up just knocks Lena off the edge. Oslo you are bad at this "not killing the thing you want to not die" part of fighting.

Oslo just laughs, saying he expected better. Lena then flies up and blasts Oslo in the chest with a bolt of Seijun energy. Oslo flies up after her and they begin fighting! Finally! And I mean like actually fighting, Oslo shoulder charges her but Lena flips him around and kicks him in the back!

Back with the Saint Nazaire...the crew piloting the Monolith spots them. Well ****. Now EVERYONE has their awesome fight. Wayan and Cale are leading their Mosquito's in their fire fight, Cortes is fighting the Monolith (and in an area where he has the advantage too, nice), Diwan is fighting Dahlia, and Lena is fighting Oslo.

The animation for the fight between Dahlia and Diwan isn't THAT good, but it's alright. It's clear they're at least trying to beat the **** out of each other. Also, Cortes is not actually fighting the Monolith because, advantage or not, it's still the Monolith. His priority is finding Lena, and thankfully her last attack just made a huge radar blip on Cheng's radar, so now they can find her.

Back with the Seijun fight, Oslo gets the upper hand and tosses Lena into the ground. She's reeling pretty badly from it to...as should be expected. This is also the trick she pulled on Diwan once, so that's cool. Oslo lands and says that she should surrender, this fight is over! But the Saint Nazaire flies in...taking a massive blast from the lightning cannon of the Monolith. Despite seeing this, Lena simply says "it's not over yet." Oslo taunts her, saying that if she thinks her friends will come to help, she's wrong. He need only snap his fingers and they'll disappear. He shouts that HE IS THE STRONGEST!

Lena says that no, there is something much stronger then his hate and greed. She then...straight up does a laser blast. But not at Oslo. Oooh no, she fires on the MONOLITH! And she CUTS THE BLOODY THING IN HALF! The Monolith falls, as the Barcode Guardian says that they just had a severe engine malfunction, and that all hands should abandon ship. With one final lurch the Monolith explodes, causing the Saint Nazaire to rock heavily! Diwan falls out of the hangar, but Dahlia catches her! I don't know why, presumably it's just an honour thing.

Dahlia shouts for Diwan to take her hand...but Diwan can't. Her hand slips and she falls into the sky. I...think Diwan might of just died. But then she has experience falling off of things, we'll see.

Also the explosion of the Monolith causes the various cubes of Kharzem to start spreading out into the sky. Understandable since the Monolith seemed to have control codes for the whole prison. Back with the fight, Lena proceeds to air juggle Oslo's ass with laser blasts, which is hilarious and great. She flies over to the cube he lands on, and it's pretty clear Oslo has just gotten his **** kicked in. He can't stand, he's crawling along the ground. Oslo, heavily wounded, tells Lena that if he leaves him here...she'll never know what happened to her father.

It's at this moment that I realize the cube above them is slowly descending. So like...Oslo's trying to avoid getting crushed to death. Lena stammers that she's not going to fall for this. Oslo insists that he KNOWS where he is. Lena says that no, if he was alive...she'd know it. Oslo insists one last time that if he dies here, that's it. The last link to her father will be gone, for good. It's lines like this that make me think that...maybe Oslo is Dad, Darth Vader style. Or maybe Oslo thinks he IS their father, actually (which is kind of creepy). Or, worst case scenario...he actually is.

Lena gives in and pushes Oslo to safety with her powers...I think. She may of just pushed him away so she couldn't hear him anymore. It's kind of unclear.

...as the cube smashes down on where he was, she collapses against it. On her knees she hits the side of the cube with her fists and says "You're evil Oslo. I win." which...at least to me, makes it PRETTY clear that of the two options I suggested...it's the latter. She just pushed him away so she wouldn't have to hear him beg for a chance to escape his death. Holy ****.

Lena uses her powers to fly down to the Saint Nazaire, as it goes to pick up Meela and Mahad. Cortes orders the Mosquito's to return...because it's time to go home.

Oh ****, Oslo's alive! He barely managed to avoid getting crushed! Damn, actually kind of disappointed. But the way he reacts...it seems like he got out of it without Lena realizing, so at least she intended for him to die. His face sort of contorts as he starts laughing. "Foolish little girl!"

Gonna be honest Oslo, you're kinda stuck here. Your flagship is dead, your army routed, your second in command likely dead as well. You're gonna be stuck in Kharzem for a long time.

On the Saint Nazaire, Mahad Lena and Meela relax in the setting sun. Meela says she was waiting for this day for a long time, she's proud of them and their Dad would be too. Mahad tells Lena to show her the photo of her and Dad, and she brings it out and it's got tape on it which is super cute. Mahad asks if they'll ever find out what happened to Dad, and Meela says that of course they will. They've shown today that nothing in all of Skyland can keep their family apart.

From the bridge Cortes smiles at the family, and turns away. Vector says the hey, the attack on the water convoy was a success even without them! Hooray! And with the news of Meela being rescued spreading around, more allied blocks are sure to follow. Still don't get why that is a thing, but I suppose the fact that A SMALL CHILD DESTROYED THE MONOLITH might have something to do with it.

The Saint Nazaire lets out it's weird whale like air horn as it docks back home, and with that the episode, and the series, draws to a close, as lighthouses in various blocks flare up, lightning the way for rebellion once more.

And that, friends, was Skyland. My thoughts?

Spoiler: Spoilered for length

Show

Overall, this episode was a good finale. I was wondering what kind of conclusion we'd get...and the presumed death of Diwan plus the absolute destruction of the Monolith puts a PRETTY hefty nail into the Sphere's influence. Additionally, with how beaten Oslo is...alive or not, he's not getting out of here, he's done. So though we don't see how, I think it's safe to say that our heroes do lead the way for the final overthrowing of the Sphere.

As for the series as a whole, I'm not going to be doing a full on essay like with RWBY (too sick to do so, and the series honestly doesn't lend itself very well to such a style of essay) but I will be going over some stuff here. The series is quite good, for what it is, a decent Saturday morning action cartoon show. It's characters are, for the most part likeable (even Mahad, like half of the time). The episodes are mostly above average in quality, and the good episodes are surprisingly good. The series doesn't really overuse some of the tropes you'd expect from this kind of show (my unending quest for traps should say as much) and when they DO use those tropes they use them in an interesting way. The voice acting is overall decent, though stand outs obviously go to Dahlia's actor, who'd go on to...actually do other stuff (Mahad's voice actor, if IMDB is to be trusted, does a lowkey Midsummer's Night Dream stage play where he plays Titania, but literally nothing else. Meanwhile Dahlia's voice actress has literally voiced Rebecca from Resident Evil since the game first came out). I'd also like to give props to Oslo's voice actor, for succeeding in making Oslo creepy as all hell.

Now...the negatives. Due to the CG style of the show, a lot of the designs could get a bit samey. Looking at some of the concept art for the series...it was supposed to look a LOT more interesting, with Brigs being big burly soldiers, Diwan and Oslo wearing some sort of weird dress/robe style that made them kinda look like Jedi, Dahlia was supposed to actually look like someone who's angry enough to rip your nose off, Vector was supposed to have a kickin' rad trenchcoat, and Mahad...actually was supposed to look like a legitimate badass. Lena too but in the CG art she's still clearly a badass, though it took awhile for her powers to fit her appearance. The other big flaw...and really the BIGGEST flaw, is the episodic nature of the show. When you can throw episodes around in a random order and still have the series make perfect sense, the episodes are WAY too episodic. This is the elephant in the room for this series, and part of why I don't think I'd give Skyland a second watch (to be fair, second watches are rare for me anyway). The lack of any real connection between episodes is sad, especially when we get things like the Symbionte and Celcia. They would of been cool to show up again, or be part of the main cast. We did get SOME nods to continuity, in the last two episodes where we reflected a bit on the Great Wall, and we got to see Cale again. And we got to see Mahad's friends from Babylonia again so that's nice! But like...that aside, the only character who isn't directly part of the main cast, that shows up more then twice...is Petricui, who's defining character trait is that he doesn't trust Lena. Now, another sort of big flaw is that there is a lot still left unexplained in all this. Where did these Prophecies come from, what EXACTLY is the time frame of all this, what exactly does the Prophecy mean exactly...why did they NOT use The Origin ever again? Stuff like that. But all that is really just an aspect of this problem with continuity. If this show had more interconnectedness going for it, it'd be a lot better.

As for how it compares to the books? No clue, can't read em! The only plot summary I've got shows that a lot of the questions I have about the setting actually get answered in the book...and more or less shows that this show is basically just one giant fan fiction set in the book universe, based on how different they appear to be in scale. But again, can't speak bloody italian and shockingly, no one has tried translating this YA novel series during the massive YA Novel Boom we had in the last few years. Hell, it's a three book series about people throwing magical powers at each other, with a female main character. Hollywood, throw money at this like you did Hunger Games!

So yeah...that's Skyland: The New World. All in all, I did not regret this. It was enjoyable, and we got a good few laughs out of it. As for what I'm doing next? Well...I'll leave you guys to discuss this until Monday, if that's alright with the Mods. After which, I've got a surprise. Some of you will be surprised earlier then others, because although you didn't know it...this thread had a contest

[Zolem]

Wellat least it wrapped everything up! ...even if Lena being that powerful came right out of nowhere. The Monolith kind of loses it's intimidation factor when you figure that one Seijun can just blast the thing down.

[LaZodiac]

Wellat least it wrapped everything up! ...even if Lena being that powerful came right out of nowhere. The Monolith kind of loses it's intimidation factor when you figure that one Seijun can just blast the thing down.

To be fair it wasn't just one Seijun Blast, she basically Master Sparked the thing for two minutes. And I imagine Meela's power boost helped as well. And since it seems like Seijun powers are influenced by emotion to some degree, her being super determined might of helped too! Though that's just conjecture.

[Rawhide]

Anyway, as the Mosquito's fight, the Saint Nazaire proper flies into the rubix cube that is Kharzeem, to find where Mahad and Lena are. Meanwhile inside the ship Diwan is in the docking bay...and there is a single grungy mosquito left. I don't know if this one is just unsuable, or if they literally just...had one left over after setting up every single Mosquito to go. Point is, Diwan can make her escape now.

My guess is that this mosquito was left over due to Dahlia not being able to claim one.

The Saint Nazaire lets out it's weird whale like air horn as it docks back home, and with that the episode, and the series, draws to a close, as lighthouses in various blocks flare up, lightning the way for rebellion once more.

Finally! You mentioned the whale sound.

this thread had a contest

Wooo, who won?

[LaZodiac]

My guess is that this mosquito was left over due to Dahlia not being able to claim one.

Finally! You mentioned the whale sound.

Wooo, who won?

That's a very good point actually...though now I wonder why no one alerted Cortes to that

Yeah, I kind of hadn't mentioned it but like...the Saint Nazaire makes this weird whale noise. I figure it's just it's engines, but I've never been on a boat like it before so I wouldn't know.

You know

[Rawhide]

That's a very good point actually...though now I wonder why no one alerted Cortes to that

Dahlia did, but Cortes said that she's needed to guard Diwan.

[LaZodiac]

Dahlia did, but Cortes said that she's needed to guard Diwan.

...right! Good point, can't believe I missed that

[Durkoala]

To be fair it wasn't just one Seijun Blast, she basically Master Sparked the thing for two minutes. And I imagine Meela's power boost helped as well. And since it seems like Seijun powers are influenced by emotion to some degree, her being super determined might of helped too! Though that's just conjecture.

Lena... take my "will".

The Saint Nazeire not only sounds like a whale, it also looks a little like one from the right angle. I still haven't reached season two yet, so things are rather lacklustre right now. Nothing has real impact beyond the episode or any continuity, some of the character development seems to be running backwards (Cortes in the party episode: Mahad could be a good leader, but he needs some discipline. Cortes in the next episode: Mahad will never be a good leader or anything ever.) and the powers do whatever the plot says that they should do.
On the other hand, the sky setting is magnificant, I like most of the character and ship designs, the faction are easily reconisable, the powers are actually pretty cool and the soundtrack is nice.

The symbiot was as good as I had hoped, and I wish it had returned. Overall, this feels like a good series that has been put through a blender and then had the connecting points sanded off. If they had not had the whole prophecy thing and had simply had a slice-of-life of some pirates/rebels hiding from a dictatorship it might have been a lot better.

[LaZodiac]

Lena... take my "will".

The Saint Nazeire not only sounds like a whale, it also looks a little like one from the right angle. I still haven't reached season two yet, so things are rather lacklustre right now. Nothing has real impact beyond the episode or any continuity, some of the character development seems to be running backwards (Cortes in the party episode: Mahad could be a good leader, but he needs some discipline. Cortes in the next episode: Mahad will never be a good leader or anything ever.) and the powers do whatever the plot says that they should do.
On the other hand, the sky setting is magnificant, I like most of the character and ship designs, the faction are easily reconisable, the powers are actually pretty cool and the soundtrack is nice.

The symbiot was as good as I had hoped, and I wish it had returned. Overall, this feels like a good series that has been put through a blender and then had the connecting points sanded off. If they had not had the whole prophecy thing and had simply had a slice-of-life of some pirates/rebels hiding from a dictatorship it might have been a lot better.

Yeah, that would of helped too. We could of gone one way or the other. Make the show obviously INTENDED to be episodic, so that it matters a little less...or maybe it less episodic like it's clearly trying to be. Instead we've got this middle of the road "The plot is trying to have continuity but the episodes won't let it!" situation, and it's frustrating.

Also, yes, that's a point I forgot. Even with the CG, one of the best things about this series is how the pirates and Sphere forces are all so clearly different. Lots of red and orange for the pirates, very rustic and steampunky looking, while all the Sphere tech and sleek, with lots of blues and whites. That's something I really enjoyed.

Also 50 points for that reference. Well done, well done indeed.

[Durkoala]

Yeah, that would of helped too. We could of gone one way or the other. Make the show obviously INTENDED to be episodic, so that it matters a little less...or maybe it less episodic like it's clearly trying to be. Instead we've got this middle of the road "The plot is trying to have continuity but the episodes won't let it!" situation, and it's frustrating.

Also, yes, that's a point I forgot. Even with the CG, one of the best things about this series is how the pirates and Sphere forces are all so clearly different. Lots of red and orange for the pirates, very rustic and steampunky looking, while all the Sphere tech and sleek, with lots of blues and whites. That's something I really enjoyed.

Also 50 points for that reference. Well done, well done indeed.

That's exactly what I thought: the series can't decide if it wants an episodic status quo, or an overarching story. I hadn't seen any suggestions about removing the plot focus, but I didn't think a lot of 'in a day in the life of Puerto Angel' stories would be a bad direction to take.

Yes, the pirates' stuff does have a bit of a steampunk look to it, while clearly not being steampunk tech. Both sides look really good, even if the Monolith is a dreadful design for a skycraft. It has a huge surface area (catches the wind easily), no easily visible lateral engines (can't easily turn or fight a push from the side), the centre of mass doesn't have any engines to support it, it's not at all aerodynamic (if the wind is to much, the St Naz can at least face the wind to reduce drag and bring the main engine power to bear. The Monolith doesn't even have a bow) and would have very little control in an environment with strong air currents (In a land of Sky, with no obstacles for miles, it's going to flip upside-down in minutes and likely tear in two). Aside from that, it's a really menacing construction that lives up to its name.

Thanks! Unfortunately, I've put it on a hiatus while I sort through Skyland (and CSS and life), but I'll get back to it.

[LaZodiac]

That's exactly what I thought: the series can't decide if it wants an episodic status quo, or an overarching story. I hadn't seen any suggestions about removing the plot focus, but I didn't think a lot of 'in a day in the life of Puerto Angel' stories would be a bad direction to take.

Yes, the pirates' stuff does have a bit of a steampunk look to it, while clearly not being steampunk tech. Both sides look really good, even if the Monolith is a dreadful design for a skycraft. It has a huge surface area (catches the wind easily), no easily visible lateral engines (can't easily turn or fight a push from the side), the centre of mass doesn't have any engines to support it, it's not at all aerodynamic (if the wind is to much, the St Naz can at least face the wind to reduce drag and bring the main engine power to bear. The Monolith doesn't even have a bow) and would have very little control in an environment with strong air currents (In a land of Sky, with no obstacles for miles, it's going to flip upside-down in minutes and likely tear in two). Aside from that, it's a really menacing construction that lives up to its name.

Thanks! Unfortunately, I've put it on a hiatus while I sort through Skyland (and CSS and life), but I'll get back to it.

I'd greatly prefer Skyland to be less episodic. It's the biggest flaw I can think of, thinking on the series

I'd call it Steampunk esque. They're using high technology and stuff, but it all looks kinda lived in, while the Sphere's are sterile. And yes, the Monolith is crap as an actual ship unless you're in space and it's Homeworld...but damn if it isn't intimidating.

Understandable! Have fun with CSS and stuff! And when you get back to watching Jojo be sure to send me your thoughts, among other things I've thrown at you

[Zolem]

So, any new plans for a Let's Watch now that Skyland is over?

[LaZodiac]

So, any new plans for a Let's Watch now that Skyland is over?

Plans are in motion as for what I'm doing next. You'll see on Monday at the earliest, Friday at the latest

[Coidzor]

Spoiler: The Fortress of Despair, Block 1

Show

Well, this is it. The second last episode. The first part of the two part finale. Let us go, ever onward!

Episode 25: Kharzem Fortress, part 1

It's the final countdown!

We open with...a random narrator that isn't Meela saying "previously on Skyland" while showing footage of episode 1. It then skips to The Book of Worlds, saying that it'll tell them the location of Kharzem. It also features a brief flash from Infiltration, where she talks about a vision involving the garage where they found the Hyperion. I...don't recall this, and I don't remember if they went there or if they found anything there if they DID go...maybe it was building up towards this? All in all this is an interesting "previously on" segment that...we've never had before, but alright. It's the final episode lets get to tying all these plot threads together I guess.

New narrator, right at the end, hooray! Hooray for the briefest clip show ever! Gotta tie all those loose ends together into a haphazard splice-job since they never bothered to weave 'em together into a cohesive whole.

Praise the Sun!

The episode proper starts with Oslo lifting Meela's prison chair (because she's forced to sit in a chair in her dank, sunless prison. It's actually kind of rough what her cell looks like since it's only large enough for her chair and nothing else) up so he can talk with her. Oslo does not wait to ramp up the creepy, greeting her with a "Hello, a pleasure to see you as always."

Creepy voice and everything? XD

I guess they got sick of her being in good enough physical condition to threaten Oslo when she got out and decided to cause horrific muscle atrophy.

Meela defies him, and Oslo says not to waste her energy since these sessions tend to exhaust her. Thankfully before I can think of something awful, Meela says that draining her power won't help him with anything! So, it appears Oslo's been using Meela like his own personal power battery, like Shinseiki. Interesting...

Oh, Oslo. Shoulda just started up a plot thread about trying to eat people's Seijunery to become some kind of Incarnate God or something while you were at it. For teh Evulz.

Oslo says that this time, he'll be able to capture her children. Apparently he's got something planned using her energy...oh dear. They start the "Testing process" he says, causing a large laser of Seijun energy to rise out from Meela, as we hear a...weird sound that kinda sounds like what I imagine a banshee would sound like. Basically, her energy is being drained. As the energy is drained it appears to be...sent into some kind of large cube inside a lot of larger cubes, until it finally starts gathering up and finally...transfering into a Brig skeleton. Oh god what are they doing...

Oh dear, he's going to try to be a Buffalo Bill wearing her Seijunery like an Edgar Suit! And then lay a trap using her voice to lure them in because Lena is an idiot when it comes to anything involving her mother.

Wait.

Wait.

Lena. Anel. Elan. Nale. My God. I know who Lena's real father is!

So it's a shrieking banshee wail of pain and energy?

Hmm, so it's just going to be a Brig that has a false signature as Meela then. Well, that's much less creepy than Oslo getting his Buffalo Bill on.

An NPC guardian with a barcode on his forehead says that the "Alpha Brig" has been fully charged. Oslo orders them to open fire, after which a horde of Brig's...well, open fire on the skeleton Brig. The blasts do nothing, and Mr Barcode says that the test is complete, the Brig is completely intact. Meela asks what he's done, but Oslo simply stands there, smiling.

Wait, didn't Alpha Brigs come up some other time before this too? Alpha somethings... Hmm. Well, this thing is certainly a lot tougher than the other brigs if it can just tank hits like a Seijun.

Oh, wait, it's a Robutt that can use Seijunery and which will allow Oslo to drain the Seijunery of Diwan and make a bunch of loyal robot Seijuns before eating the Seijunery of all the Guardians to become Pun-Pun.

We cut to Port Angel. Cortes, Wayan, Vector, Cheng and Dahlia are all planning this important attack. Even other Blocks are going to help. If they can succeed in taking this convoy of water carriers, everyone will have water for months! That would be super great. Cortes sets Wayan out to start planning their attack strategy, while he goes over to Cheng to congratulate him on getting so much classified documents from the Sphere. He takes it humbly at first, but then makes a rip on Cortes by saying that everyone has their strengths. HIS is his brain, while Cortes' is...he doesn't say it, but Dahlia laughs at Cheng's "brain vs brawn" joke.

What a sudden expansion of their operations!

Oh, Cheng, Mahad has rubbed off on you in a bad way.

Cortes brushes it off, and asks Dahlia if she's heard from Mahad and Lena. She says no, they didn't even say where they were going. We then cut over to the two, who are flying the Hyperion back to their old home. Lena says "I know you think I'm weird, but I know there's something here we've got to find". I'd think that we've developed enough that Mahad wouldn't think that, or Lena wouldn't think he thought that, but it makes a degree of sense.

See, that's because Cheng is just a kid and too young for corporal punishment from whatever Cortes' wrestle name was. They really should've had a fight between Cortes and Mahad, come to think of it. Would've been a teachable moment for Mahad and showed off Cortes's Cunningly Brutal and Brutally Cunning.

Oh, Oh Mahad. It seems he just is the boy who refuses to grow up. Well, they had searched there before and her Seijunery didn't turn up anything then, and her Seijunery has led them into at least one trap. A Tentacle Trap, at that.

Back with our Sphere friends, Diwan enters Oslo's command room, saying that Mahad and Lena where spotted near an old Rebel HQ. She says she'll go immediately...but Oslo orders her not to. He says she's failed too many times, and that they'll send the Alpha Brig instead. Oh dear...

"You've failed me for the last time for the last time, ROBO-DIWAN, GO FORTH!"

Back at said rebel base, Mahad...continues to be Mahad, telling Lena to pick up the pace. He doesn't have all day to wait around for her. Lena tells him not to be so impatient, but Mahad says that it's been "forever" and then actually says something kind of smart. How come her visions can tell her to come here...but not where to find the exact thing she's looking for? This IS smart, but Mahad really doesn't understand that visions are very rarely exact things, they're usually vague.

At least it's not a hidden secret rebel base that their house was on top of or anything. Or their old house for that matter.

Well, yes and no. Her visions have been proven to be compromisable before...

Lena then finds it...and it's the picture of their Mom and Dad that Diwan tore up in episode 1. Huh...I know they showed that scene in the "previously on" segment, but I doubted it'd be that important...wonder what's up.

I have to wonder if there actually was a guy in that photo or if they made that guy in photoshop...

Maybe there's hidden coordinates in the photo? ...I don't even wanna think about how it ended up in the abandoned(but not cleared out by the Sphere despite knowing about it...) rebel base from their house though.

Then a Sphere shuttle shows up! Oh dear...it starts opening fire on Lena, but she's able to use her Seijun powers to super jump across the garage, and starts heading towards the roof where Mahad says he'll go get her. I'm surprised she didn't just use her powers to destroy the shuttle, but maybe that'd cause her to drop the torn picture or something?

Nah, because it's a mandatory chase sequence!

They...then meet up on a street. Um, alright. But in the shadows hides...the Alpha Brig! It does some crazy ass parkour, including building jumping, to catch up wit the Hyperion! It manages to land on one of the wings, and starts smashing up the engine of that wing with what looks like Seijun powered punches. Oh god it's a super robot!

A Super Fighting Robot.

Mahad however uses some tricky flying to smash it off onto a bridge. Welp, so much for the Alpha Brig...assuming it's dead from just that. Which it isn't, awesomely. And it's clear it's going to be tracking them pretty hard...which is bad for our heroes since they're gonna need to land to make repairs soon.

I should hope not. It's Robo-Diwan, after all. Gotta outlast her by a little bit at least.

After the ship lands...they find the Alpha Brig directly in front of them. Damn that thing is fast. Lena goes out to fight it while Mahad works on the repairs. She throws a blast of energy at it, but it catches it and throws it back, causing the two to get into a focus match with the ball of energy floating between them, each trying to push it forward. This isn't that compelling of a fight, but it is still pretty tense. Lena manages to push it back, damaging it! Hooray! I guess that's it for the super brig for real this time.

Well, at least it's not grunting while Seijun beams push against one another, I guess. More like the fight where two people have a sphere of annihilation between 'em. Still not the most compelling of stuff though, no.

Damaging or destroying it?

Back in Port Angel, Cortes is still bothered that Mahad and Lena aren't here. Not angrily, but in a more calm annoyed sense, because he wants them to be part of this attack. I can understand why he'd want them to help, but the way he phrases it...it sounds like it'll be important for them to be there beyond just being of assistance. He orders Dahlia to get a scan of the Hyperion's latest activity so they can find it...because they'll be wanting to do this sneak attack soon.

"Where did those protagonists get to? They know we can't do anything without them to advance the plot till they get here." Lena is their only reliable source of Seijunery and that's one of the most important sources of power in any conflict in Skyland it seems.

Back with our heroes, Mahad calls Lena silly for claiming this Brig has Seijun powers. Lena insists, however, and says she's got NO idea how, seeing as how it's not human. This is completely true and I wonder what the explanation is...perhaps cyborgs?

SUPER SCIENCE! SOMETHING LIKE THE SYMBIOTE THEY FORGOT ABOUT! OSLO HAD SEX WITH A TOASTER! WHO KNOWS! XD I mean, they've got ghost librarian duchesses and they weren't phased by that.

Mahad doesn't really care, because more importantly it fried the ship's insides pretty bad. The computer is trashed, and "nothing on this stupid ship works without it". Lena admonishes Mahad for calling it stupid, saying she loves the ship! After all, it used to be Dad's. Mahad says that yes, he does too, but right now it's basically junk so that kinda sucks. Which...is completely true. After fiddling with a panal, something starts happening...specifically, it brings up an old map. But the map shows a zone even Vector doesn't have on his map. Weird...

"Don't diss the ship, it's my real dad!" Panel, not panal. Panal just seems... wrong somehow.

Yay for hidden maps!

Too bad they don't have a computer person to fix their computer due to not telling anyone where they were going.

It's...it's a map to Kharzem prison. Wat. First of all...why? Second of all, how? Third...doesn't the fact that all the blocks are always moving mean then any old map isn't going to work? What is this? Mahad goes on a bit for how surprising it is that this is actually here...and Lena basically tells him to shut up and drive, because they have no reason not to just go on guns blazing and save her. Mahad...brings up basically the point I just did. Blocks move, maps are useless. He even says the Book of World's map was worthless! Nice use of continuity...though shame this super legendary mega tome of knowledge was worthless.

Well, that was a pointless episode even more then. XD And this is weird.

Lena says this is different because it's DAD'S map, it must be able to guide them to information they didn't have before. Lena...you're a good character but damn are you delusional sometimes. Mahad caves in, and goes to radio Cortes to tell him...which Lena stops, saying he'll try to talk them out of it. I want Mahad to say something along the lines of "not like that's ever stopped us before." but instead Lena says that they can just call him if they need it. Mahad agrees.

That doesn't follow and Lena is scary-crazy. Maybe Seijunery eats part of people's brains and makes 'em dumb just like Potter Wizards and their Wizardry.

This...is going to go super poorly. They fly off, and we get a scene that implies the Alpha Brig might be alive still but I honestly can't tell.

This ability to self recover, allowing the deceased Alpha Brig to keep on resurrecting. I’m positive, this guy has aquired abilities of the Dark (Devil) Gundam WITH THE HELP OF KYOJI!!!

We cut over to a water carrier, with Diwan at the helm. Oslo orders her over radio to find the Alpha Brig and to report back to him after doing so, since they've lost contact with it. Oslo tells her to not **** this up since he's beginning to lose his trust in her...which to be fair he should of the third time a small child outwitted and outfought her. Diwan seems to take it in stride as she's yet to respond to any of Oslo's less savory comments towards her.

She's just biding her time till she can pull off another attempt at Starscreaming.

We cut back to...Babylonia of all places! Mahad and Lena are flying by, and I can't imagine why...maybe it's just enroute? They reflect on how it hasn't changed a bit, and how they miss home. Lena misses playing basketball, and Mahad says that when they're done they'll have a little one on one. Lena is happy, and says she'll kick his ass. We get some nice banter here, and it's cute. Lena's better at basketball then Mahad...when using her powers. It's actually pretty cute.

Huh, I'm surprised they hadn't just, y'know, forgotten that it existe.d

Oh hey, then they fly past...Great Wall China Land! Mahad wonders how they're ole double crossing friend Lee is, and I'm actually feeling really nostalgic and happy about this because I have a feeling we're going to get more of stuff like this throughout the episode. For a series that sure divorced itself from continuity, this is pretty nice. Lena points out that Lee only pretended, he came through in the end.

Hmm. Sounds like they're doing some kind of montage or something.

Finally, our heroes approach Kharzem, the huge, white, floating borg cube wannabe. Lena starts hearing voices, as she senses into Kharzem, feeling her presence. We also get to see a bit how Kharzem works, it's basically a giant box filled with floating, smaller boxes that are each an individual cell for people, who basically sit in a chair inside a small dark, chair sized room in the middle of it all. Lena then tells Mahad to call Cortes...finally a smart decision!

Hooray!

But Mahad can't get through. Mahad decides it doesn't matter, because they're finally here. It's time for the final showdown! On the one hand I'm kind of annoyed that they DID find Kharzem so easily...but I think it kind of works, in some weird way.

Boo!

Back with Diwan, she's found the Alpha Brig. She realizes something Lena did to it, calling her a little brat and telling a Brig to call Oslo, saying that he was right about her. Interesting...but before they can, they get obliterated by the Saint Nazaire's forward cannons! Diwan manages to block one of the shots, and stares down the warship. On board, Wayan says that Diwan can "volley these light shots pretty easily captain" to which Cortes says they cannot let her get away, since it's no coincidence they found her while searching for Lena and Mahad.

Now how are they going to deal with Seijunery without Seijunery of their own...

Diwan...somewhat funnily, shouts at the far away ship, saying they're wasting her time. I can presume they've got scanners to pick this up, because otherwise Diwan looks kinda stupid here. The ship responds by opening fire, though she's able to block those shots as well. Dahlia says that if they just keep firing her defenses will be run down and then they can capture her. SO...Cortes gives the order to continue firing at her. This'll be good.

Oh, that's how. Ok. XD

They then uh...fire...black mist at her, that envelops her and causes her to collapse. I...I don't understand what happened here.

Or Blackwater mist, that works too, I guess.

Back at Kharzem, we've got the Monolith hovering over it...which has just received a report saying that an unidentified ship has just started approaching the prison. Uh oh. He orders them to scramble the shuttles and then...then he says "welcome to Kharzem, children"

Yeeeep.

Oh my god, did the Brig use his powers to hack into the Hyperion to PUT that map there? Because if it did...holy **** Oslo is good at this villain thing. That would be amazing. I'm really hoping that's the case here.

That'd explain the map working, at least. And make the Alpha Brig a bit more impressive.

As the shuttles and the Hyperion fly into Kharzem proper, the floating boxes that make up Kharzem start closing around them, moving and twisting to interrupt their flight. Lena points this out and Mahad makes a snide comment about noticing. I'm alright with this. After doing some evasive manouvers he says "and I'm even BETTER at basketball". Oh Mahad, you hot shot ace pilot rookie you. You've never changed, and I suppose I'm alright with that after a fashion.

Oh, Mahad. Oh, backseat piloting.

We get a fairly long and elaborate fire fight between the shuttles and Hyperion, as they weave between the floating prison cubes. The Brigs continue to show their pretty awful by crashing into said cubes, no doubt causing some concern to the inhabitants.

Woo, dogfight scene!

Probably killing anyone stuck in those things, honestly, but, well, physics. *shrug*

It ends when the Monolith looms into view. Mahad says it'll never catch them...after which it's engine is clipped by the lightning cannon, causing it to burst into flames. However, they're close to the cube Mom is imprisoned in, so they decide to crash land onto it. Exactly as Oslo planned it seems...though it was a damned risky plan.

Oh dear, that's some serendipity for Oslo's evil plan.

...oh damn one of the cubes is floating down to crush them. That's...that's not good. And they can't eject from the Hyperion. Lena uses her powers to open the doors so they can leave though. Unfortunately...the Hyperion is gone *salutes awesome Not X Wing*

Huh. That was pretty ballsy of whoever was running the prison's block controls. And kinda interesting that they destroyed the ship in the second to last episode.

So...our heroes are now floating in the sky due to Lena's Seijun powers (flying to Mom's specific cube, apparently they didn't crash in the right place, shockingly), the Hyperion is destroyed, but Diwan is captured. So...I think the bad guys won this exchange.

Yep, Team Protagonist has basically no real way of escaping from the prison now and no real plan for taking out Oslo so they can just win, either.

Speaking of, we cut back to the Saint Nazaire. Dahlia is watching over the imprisoned Diwan. She doubts she'll be kept here for long, but Dahlia says she will cause she's there. Diwan says that she's squished her several times already...which isn't entirely accurate that I recall. Dahlia seems to confirm that yes, she and Diwan have tangled in the past...but now she's in a room with no sunlight. They're on an even playing field, which means Dahlia can whup her sorry ass. Diwan insists that since she's a Seijun, she's inherently superior even without sunlight. I kinda of wish we'd gotten more of this throughout the series.

Mmm, Seijun Superiority. Surprised we've only seen that a few times from the baddies. And honestly I think it's mostly been displayed by a group of 8 year olds.

Anyway, Diwan quickly realizes how boned she actually is and offers to trade her freedom for the location of Mahad and Lena. On the bridge, Cheng is working on the Alpha Brig to find out that same information.

Diwan moves onto the bargaining stage of grief really quickly. XD

Back in Kharzem, Lena and Mahad are working out how to get into Mom's cell cube. Oslo just opens the door for them using his control panal. So it's pretty clear he's got everything under control. Our heroes peer down into the entrance of the cube, from which there be no escape...and we get a "to be continued."

Oh, Oslo. They've played direclty into his hands. Actually, how are they both fitting on top of a cube which is only large enough for their mom to fit inside while sitting in a chair.

And that's the episode. My thoughts? It was a good one. In a vacuum this episode has some good action, some really nice subtext/foreshadowing with how this random old map "just so happens" to take them to Kharzem, but Oslo is so satisfied they're there it's clearly a trap he made and the Alpha Brig existed purely to give them that map. It's pretty cool. I'm not sure how this'll fit with the next episode, but we'll see. They're clearly building up to some kind of massive confrontation.

Sounds like a fun one. Would've been much better with more foreshadowing of the Alpha Brig, like they faced it instead of Diwan during one of the earlier episodes establishing it as a threat and then it came back powered up fully here and actually intentionally took a fall to set them on the path to destruction.

The best part of this episode though was the little nods to continuity. We saw Babylonia, we saw the Great Wall, and we referenced some events from previous episodes. I REALLY wish this series did more of this, because this series brings up so many cool things...and then just kinda puts them aside because of it's desire to be super episodic, which was FAR to it's detriment. It kind of feels like this was what they had to do after being left with 20 some episodes of self contained episodes, they had to create some kind of ending that took advantage of those things. And though it was nice to call back to them, it was a little sad to see how they WERE called back to. Nostalgiaing about old friends in old places is nice, but the legendary tome of worldly knowledge turning out to be...worthless? That's kind of cheap, especially since they had to face a ghost riddle to get it.

Indeed, that does seem to have been the show's fatal flaw, the lack of continuity and then having to do as much as they could here and maybe in the next one.

At any rate, join us Friday for the conclusion. I won't be making a super huge essay like I did for RWBY, but I'll be sure to be saying a lot.

And hopefully I'll be able to go through that one today too. XD

[LaZodiac]

And hopefully I'll be able to go through that one today too. XD

Good luck. Also, the cubes are like block sized, sorry I couldn't get that cross too well.

Also, I've done a thing, as a special bonus episode, as I couldn't get everything done today. Friday for sure though!

And this thing...IS A VIDEO!

Bonus Episode: Exploring Skyland

Length: 9:31

Note: Text might be a little small...sorry, not sure how to make it full screen, I'm bad at this kind of thing! Anyone with AVS screen capture wanna tell me how?

In this video I go over the Skyland website! Which is still up for some reason! In it we get to see all the art for all the characters (minus the Brig) as well as read some bios, and see 3D models of their weaponry. We also see some really weird ass ****, like the fact that Cheng apparently has a sniper rifle, and a pink mouse robot...none of which actually showed up in series! Also, an...actually really cool poster!

Looking at this art, it makes it clear that the series was SUPPOSED to be better then it was...but when the CG graphics turned out how they did, they probably made it more episodic instead. Then it go niche level popular and they tried to fix it a little for the finale. Of note is that Dahlia actually looks really fierce, and Wayan looks buff as hell. Cortes is grizzled and "The" Vector has a bitchin' trench/labcoat. Mahad actually looks threatening, and as you can see from the Graphic Novel preview I talk about below, the Seijun powers CAN look really cool, with lasers and stuff.

Now onto the Graphic Novel. It was released at the Comicon of 2005, so if anyone can find me that (the site's PDF, which we go through, is only the first six pages of teasers) I'll go through it too. It gets the name of the Monolith wrong though so I don't know how accurate it'll be.

Finally, the piece de resistance of this site...the Raid and Rescue game. In it, we explore very slippery controls (the Saint Naz insists on listing downwards, always) weird hit detection, and the day to day adventures of Cortes and his crew, before the Protagonists showed up and forced everything to suddenly happen.

So yeah, that was the Skyland website, and unless you guys can find the Skyland graphic novel (I can't) that'll be it for Skyland. Join us on Friday where I'll reveal what's gonna happen next.

[Coidzor]

Spoiler: Fortress of Despair, Block A

Show

And here we are, on the precipice. The final episode of Skyland. Well, lets go.

Episode 26: Kharzem Fortress, part 2

It's the end of the show as we know it, and I feel fine.

We begin once more with a "last time on Skyland" segment, detailing the events of last episode.

We open proper on seagulls flying over scenario. This is like the third time they've used this shot in an episode and...I'll be honest it still looks great, though this time it's got ominous music playing instead of super calm relaxing piano music.

Even the seagulls can't be mellow with this much drama on the line!

We cut to the Saint Nazaire...only to cut to Port Angel where Cheng and Vector are working on the Alpha Brig. Cortes radios in, asking them if they've finished cracking his transmission code. No luck, unfortunately. Cortes pushes for him to go faster, because they don't have the time. Vector says he knows, and that he'll try.

Oh, well, it looks like the Alpha Brig hasn't self-recovered after all.

Back in Kharzem, specifically in Meela's cube, Lena and Mahad step into the room where we've seen Oslo talk to her last episode. However, where she would be is instead shrouded in...some kind of light source, according to Lena even though it's more shadowy then light. She tries to go through, but it hurts her and sends her cringing backwards. Apparently, it's Anti Seijun...so I guess the ex-solarium works now? I mean, it was sort of established that Jonah got it working, but I figured since he escaped they didn't bother with it. Although considering Oslo's sunbathing habits, it's entirely likely he has enough personal data to make whatever Jonah did. Interesting...

So that's a lot bigger than a single cell, after all. Looks like an interrogation chamber and a cell.

I'm surprised Lena didn't just send the meat-shield ot investigate the weird energy field where a Seijun would be kept captive to avoid losing any energy or getting hit with a trap herself. Oh, Lena.

I basically gave up trying to figure out the Exosquadarium myself. Just rolling with it. XD

Mahad steps up to the plate, and easily goes through this anti light. Because, you know, human. There's a hatch for where Meela's chair would rise up, but he can't seem to find a way to open it. He says that the light source must be keeping it sealed which...doesn't make too much sense. Unless the idea is that this "light" is coming off FROM the thing that is sealing it, which would make sense.

Yay for meatshields! That or it's one of those things where the door can't engage without the light source being cut out due to circuits. Sorta like how you can't generally open both doors of an airlock without some significant workarounds of the system.

Mahad shouts a taunt up at Oslo about this being "one of his little inventions" and then adds that two can play at that game. He leaves the light, and takes a few steps back with Lena. He then chucks the boomerang at the device generating the anti light. It does...nothing, so he throws it again. And again and again and again, until finally he manages to damage the machine enough to stop the light. First try!

Fighter's Creed: If at first bashing don't succeed, Bash, Bash again.

Mahad and Lena hold hands, and step towards the hatch so they can finally meet their Mom again, after so long. Like two days give or take because they literally saw her in Infiltration. It kind of makes this less impactful, but at the same time it's still a pretty big deal.

Well, you know, wibbly, wobbly, timey, skymey.

The hatch opens, and we start getting this really touching rendition of the main theme plays, as her chair rises up. They all group hug (as much as they can, Meela is still strapped to the chair) and tell her how they were so worried, they thought they'd never see her again, and how they'll never let go of her again. On the one hand, Meela really should of just left with them in Infiltration. On the other hand this is too sweet to nitpick at.

Awww.

Then Oslo shows up...with a fairly large force of Alpha Brigs. Uh oh.

Oh, ok, he managed to mass produce them. ...Then they shouldn't be Alpha Brigs, they should be Beta-testing with this many at least. XD

Back with Cortes, Vector radios in to tell them that they broke the code! Hooray! It turns out Vector and Cheng where...looking for something far more complex then the simple morse code transmissions it was doing. I'll be PERFECTLY honest...this makes 100% sense. You're dealing with a massive, planet wide dictatorship, you expect them to use some elaborate super code phrases. Instead it's just morse code.

heh. Just morse code. It was so simple we forgot anyone used it. Wait. That should've come up when they first started examining to try to find a code to break.

But yeah, now that they've broken this code, they know where Kharzem is! So now...a choice. They can go save Mahad and Lena, or participate in this water raid with the other rebel blocks. Cortes' choice is simple. "Tell them to start without us. That should keep the Sphere out of our way for the next few hours."

Giant raid shall be our cover for a suicidal mission on an enemy stronghold, woohoo!

I really hope you're making the right decision Cortes. A lot of people are going to die because of you wanting to save three people.

Well, you know, series finales, can't have one of those without a bunch of mooks dying, right? Something something something omelettes, something something something eggs.

Back with those said three people, Oslo is using his powers to levitate Mahad and Lena. Meela threatens him, but Oslo calls her bluff. What can she do to stop this? Her powers are drained, given to his new generation of Brigs. He has the Lady of the Light, and with her he'll become even more powerful then imaginable. He levitates Lena down after letting Mahad drop on his face and grabs her arm. He tells Lena that together, they will rule the world, and that they've lost the battle...forever. He then drags her off.

Oh dear.

But then Meela grits her teeth, and gathers up a charge of Seijun energy. She gets out of the bindings that keep her in the chair and levitates into the air! Oslo shouts that this is impossible (and as far as I know it is! Wonder what the deal is). After levitating up into the air and glowing a bit, Meela just...stays there, eyes closed. But I think I know what her plan is. She's absorbing the run off energy from the Brigs, and when Oslo orders them to attack her (which he does) she'll just absorb all her power back.

Seriously, where does she keep getting powers from after getting drained? The power of love?

The Alpha Brigs fire off their Seijun lightning at Meela, and she says "You cannot have my energy. It is mine and I'm taking it BACK!" as the whine of Seijun powers going off gets louder and louder. The Alpha Brigs start getting zapped and falling to the ground, destroyed. Meela's got her power back...and she uses it to create a huge explosion that destroys the top part of they're in completely! Holy crap...what just happened?

Well, then. I was wondering how they'd deal with that army. Reabsorbing their stolen powers makes about as much sense as anything else.

Back with Cortes, Wayan reports in that the rebel forces are getting...hammered pretty hard, and asking for an ETA on his arrival. He gives the frustratingly vague answer of "after we save Lena and Mahad." and then orders Wayan to make sure every Mosquito is ready to scramble. Dahlia then radios in saying she's wasting her time guarding Diwan...to which Cortess correctly says "no you're not, she's too dangerous to leave unguarded." Dahlia agrees after a fashion, and wishes Cortes good luck because "They deserve to be a family again."

I guess Cortes was even more indispensable to that plan than we initially thought.

Then as she turns to leave Diwan shows up, having broken out of her cell somehow. She says "Going to Kharzem? I thank you for the trip." and then she...does a really limp wristed looking thrust forward with her arm that apparently...straight up kills or KOs Dahlia in one strike. Diwan taunts her by saying "You've underestimated my Seijun strength". So apparently Seijun's are also physically stronger as well, then? This is...kind of lame. Not the least of which because Diwa has lost physical fights with Mahad before.

I guess Mahad's voice gives him super strength?

And apparently no one goes to check up on Dahlia at any point after this because they get to Kharzem without anyone noticing that Diwan just palm thrusted Dahlia into next week.

Well, at least that means she'll avoid the ignomious fate of being given to Mahad like a trophy during the final moments of the show?

Back with Mahad and friends, the smoke is slooowly clearing. Mahad and Lena are super impressed by the fact that his Mom just set off a tactical nuke of sorts, as they should be. Less impressive though is the fact that Oslo isn't even phased by this, and there appears to be no real damage other then the roof being torn off.

Well, at least she took the roof off.

Meela says that Oslo should let them leave, before she REALLY gets mad. Unfortunately for them, Oslo isn't much for capitulation. Especially because, as Oslo says...that was all Meela had. She's completely drained now...and he's right, as she starts to stumble and Mahad has to help keep her standing. Well then. And like...she's not even able to stay up with Mahad's help, so they help her sit down. She says to just give her a minute...but Lena says no, she can't continue fighting in this condition.

Oh, Meela, trying to talk to Oslos never works. And neither does trying to bluff him.

Time for Lena to finally end the series, I guess, but not before Cortes shows up and does something, I guess. Maybe we'll get to watch Diwan end up saving the day by Golluming Oslo and herself into certain doomy doom doom.

Meela wisely agrees, and says that it's Lena's time. She must fight for all of them. Meela gives Lena the last of whatever energy she's got left, telling her to use the strength of their family. Oslo just kinda lets this happen, but he's pretty confident in his skill so I'm not THAT surprised...though it is him faltering a bit in being smart.

Obviously he has to crush any hope his future loli-waifu might have of getting more power and turning against him in the future.

Oh wait right, derp. Oslo explains why he HASN'T attacked them yet...and it's because Lena is the Lady of the Light. Can't risk blowing her up when he crushes everyone else. That makes perfect sense actually.

Or that. I need to replay Alan Wake, all of this going on about the Lady of the Light is reminding me.

Lena uses her powers to shield Meela and Mahad, and sends them off to another cube so they can be safe from the fighting. And now...it's time for a throw down. Oslo taunts her, saying that she's just giving her family a perfect view for her defeat. Lena counters back with a "don't be so sure of yourself", to which Oslo replies "oh, but I am." which is actually pretty badass. We've never seen Oslo actually fight and LOSE against Lena before, so he can back up his words pretty well here.

Hopefully this'll be good instead of a lot of posturing with no fighty and an anticlimax, though. XD

Back with Cortes, they're aaaalmost at Kharzem. Cortes says to himself that if they can save Meela, it'll change the face of Skyland and breath new life into the rebellion! I...fail to see how, since she's one person. Yeah, she's the wife of your greatest hero, but I'm...not entirely sure how that'd help change the world. He then orders a launch of the mosquitoes.

I guess if they can eliminate Oslo he'll turn out to be loadbearing somehow and break the power of the Sphere over the Guardians and thus fracture their power base? *shrug* I mean, she was kinda just... being a single mom that wasn't even hiding all that well to begin with at the start of the series.

Barcode Guardian reports in that the Saint Nazaire has entered their zone, and Oslo simply tells him to deal with it, as he is busy. Busy standing around talking with Lena, but still busy. Come on guys we're half way through with the episode, please fight. I want this.

Ahh, and here we'll see Oslo's critical failing, lack of competent and cultivated underlings to delegate simple tasks like blowing up enemy warships.

Instead of an awesome super power battle, we instead get another fire fight between Mosquito's and Shuttles. It's good (and one of the pilots is literally Hulk Hogan in a blue shirt!!!) but it's...not what I expected coming into this.

Hah. l mean, some dogfighting is obligatory, though, yeah, the finale is just being delayed, but, y'know.

Oh holy **** Cale! One of the Mosquito pilots is Cale, from the gladiator arena place! That's a nice callback. Wish he'd get his staff out to bust some heads though. Well, he's in a jet so he kind of can't but still!

Hooray!

Anyway, as the Mosquito's fight, the Saint Nazaire proper flies into the rubix cube that is Kharzeem, to find where Mahad and Lena are. Meanwhile inside the ship Diwan is in the docking bay...and there is a single grungy mosquito left. I don't know if this one is just unsuable, or if they literally just...had one left over after setting up every single Mosquito to go. Point is, Diwan can make her escape now.

Obviously they had a spare.

Oh hey Dahlia's not dead, she was just knocked out! She leaps and Diwan, and in doing so opens up the hanger door. Now it's time for them to have a life and death battle as well.

Hooray, she's not dead. On the other hand, I guess there's a fate worse than death awaiting her now.

Baaack with Oslo...and I think he realizes he's COMPLETELY ****ed if Lena actually fights him with all of her strength, cause he's STILL just talking with her. He's currently trying to convince her that we're not so different you and I. Lena is all "...no" so Oslo decides that now, it's finally time to do things "the hard way". He lets loose a wave of Seijun energy that stuns Lena, then lets out a larger wave of visible Seijun energy that...straight up just knocks Lena off the edge. Oslo you are bad at this "not killing the thing you want to not die" part of fighting.

Oh, Oslo, there can be only one reply to that. "I'm twelve and you're a creepy pedo." XD

yeah, kinda confused by what he was on about there.

Oslo just laughs, saying he expected better. Lena then flies up and blasts Oslo in the chest with a bolt of Seijun energy. Oslo flies up after her and they begin fighting! Finally! And I mean like actually fighting, Oslo shoulder charges her but Lena flips him around and kicks him in the back!

And now for kungfu energy fightan.

Back with the Saint Nazaire...the crew piloting the Monolith spots them. Well ****. Now EVERYONE has their awesome fight. Wayan and Cale are leading their Mosquito's in their fire fight, Cortes is fighting the Monolith (and in an area where he has the advantage too, nice), Diwan is fighting Dahlia, and Lena is fighting Oslo.

And Mahad's sitting on his thumbs. XD

The animation for the fight between Dahlia and Diwan isn't THAT good, but it's alright. It's clear they're at least trying to beat the **** out of each other. Also, Cortes is not actually fighting the Monolith because, advantage or not, it's still the Monolith. His priority is finding Lena, and thankfully her last attack just made a huge radar blip on Cheng's radar, so now they can find her.

Hooray!

Back with the Seijun fight, Oslo gets the upper hand and tosses Lena into the ground. She's reeling pretty badly from it to...as should be expected. This is also the trick she pulled on Diwan once, so that's cool. Oslo lands and says that she should surrender, this fight is over! But the Saint Nazaire flies in...taking a massive blast from the lightning cannon of the Monolith. Despite seeing this, Lena simply says "it's not over yet." Oslo taunts her, saying that if she thinks her friends will come to help, she's wrong. He need only snap his fingers and they'll disappear. He shouts that HE IS THE STRONGEST!

Aww, he's Anakining now. Obviously it's time for the final stage of the boss fight.

Lena says that no, there is something much stronger then his hate and greed. She then...straight up does a laser blast. But not at Oslo. Oooh no, she fires on the MONOLITH! And she CUTS THE BLOODY THING IN HALF! The Monolith falls, as the Barcode Guardian says that they just had a severe engine malfunction, and that all hands should abandon ship. With one final lurch the Monolith explodes, causing the Saint Nazaire to rock heavily! Diwan falls out of the hangar, but Dahlia catches her! I don't know why, presumably it's just an honour thing.

Daaaang. That's some euphemism. And quite the bodycount for a twelve year old. XD

Dahlia shouts for Diwan to take her hand...but Diwan can't. Her hand slips and she falls into the sky. I...think Diwan might of just died. But then she has experience falling off of things, we'll see.

Obviously she's going to splat on Oslo, taking them both out.

Also the explosion of the Monolith causes the various cubes of Kharzem to start spreading out into the sky. Understandable since the Monolith seemed to have control codes for the whole prison. Back with the fight, Lena proceeds to air juggle Oslo's ass with laser blasts, which is hilarious and great. She flies over to the cube he lands on, and it's pretty clear Oslo has just gotten his **** kicked in. He can't stand, he's crawling along the ground. Oslo, heavily wounded, tells Lena that if he leaves him here...she'll never know what happened to her father.

Hope there was a control console somewhere in the prison itself or that's going to end poorly for a lot of prisoners and getting out of there. XD

Oh, Oslo, trying to pull the father card. XD

It's at this moment that I realize the cube above them is slowly descending. So like...Oslo's trying to avoid getting crushed to death. Lena stammers that she's not going to fall for this. Oslo insists that he KNOWS where he is. Lena says that no, if he was alive...she'd know it. Oslo insists one last time that if he dies here, that's it. The last link to her father will be gone, for good. It's lines like this that make me think that...maybe Oslo is Dad, Darth Vader style. Or maybe Oslo thinks he IS their father, actually (which is kind of creepy). Or, worst case scenario...he actually is.

Who knows. I guess we'll find out. Or not.

Lena gives in and pushes Oslo to safety with her powers...I think. She may of just pushed him away so she couldn't hear him anymore. It's kind of unclear.

...as the cube smashes down on where he was, she collapses against it. On her knees she hits the side of the cube with her fists and says "You're evil Oslo. I win." which...at least to me, makes it PRETTY clear that of the two options I suggested...it's the latter. She just pushed him away so she wouldn't have to hear him beg for a chance to escape his death. Holy ****.

Woo, squishy. But remember, they're not done till you've stuck the fork in 'em.

Lena uses her powers to fly down to the Saint Nazaire, as it goes to pick up Meela and Mahad. Cortes orders the Mosquito's to return...because it's time to go home.

Well, that was a major victory, all told, now they gotta go bail out the rest of the nascent rebellion 2.0 so they can actually capitalize on all this.

Oh ****, Oslo's alive! He barely managed to avoid getting crushed! Damn, actually kind of disappointed. But the way he reacts...it seems like he got out of it without Lena realizing, so at least she intended for him to die. His face sort of contorts as he starts laughing. "Foolish little girl!"

It'd be even better if he came back missing an arm and being ragey.

Gonna be honest Oslo, you're kinda stuck here. Your flagship is dead, your army routed, your second in command likely dead as well. You're gonna be stuck in Kharzem for a long time.

Yeah, it seems like he doesn't have much time to try to go after them and get smacked down for good. Almost like they were holding out hope for maybe doing another season or something else after this. XD

On the Saint Nazaire, Mahad Lena and Meela relax in the setting sun. Meela says she was waiting for this day for a long time, she's proud of them and their Dad would be too. Mahad tells Lena to show her the photo of her and Dad, and she brings it out and it's got tape on it which is super cute. Mahad asks if they'll ever find out what happened to Dad, and Meela says that of course they will. They've shown today that nothing in all of Skyland can keep their family apart.

And then it cuts to Cortes with a knowing smile.

From the bridge Cortes smiles at the family, and turns away. Vector says the hey, the attack on the water convoy was a success even without them! Hooray! And with the news of Meela being rescued spreading around, more allied blocks are sure to follow. Still don't get why that is a thing, but I suppose the fact that A SMALL CHILD DESTROYED THE MONOLITH might have something to do with it.

I KNEW IT.

Well, at least that was taken care of, hooray.

The Saint Nazaire lets out it's weird whale like air horn as it docks back home, and with that the episode, and the series, draws to a close, as lighthouses in various blocks flare up, lightning the way for rebellion once more.

Derp Whale Horn.

And that, friends, was Skyland. My thoughts? Overall, this episode was a good finale. I was wondering what kind of conclusion we'd get...and the presumed death of Diwan plus the absolute destruction of the Monolith puts a PRETTY hefty nail into the Sphere's influence. Additionally, with how beaten Oslo is...alive or not, he's not getting out of here, he's done. So though we don't see how, I think it's safe to say that our heroes do lead the way for the final overthrowing of the Sphere.

Seems that way, though not showing Diwan's death at least sets up some potential open-endedness for them, too.

As for the series as a whole, I'm not going to be doing a full on essay like with RWBY (too sick to do so, and the series honestly doesn't lend itself very well to such a style of essay) but I will be going over some stuff here. The series is quite good, for what it is, a decent Saturday morning action cartoon show. It's characters are, for the most part likeable (even Mahad, like half of the time). The episodes are mostly above average in quality, and the good episodes are surprisingly good. The series doesn't really overuse some of the tropes you'd expect from this kind of show (my unending quest for traps should say as much) and when they DO use those tropes they use them in an interesting way. The voice acting is overall decent, though stand outs obviously go to Dahlia's actor, who'd go on to...actually do other stuff (Mahad's voice actor, if IMDB is to be trusted, does a lowkey Midsummer's Night Dream stage play where he plays Titania, but literally nothing else. Meanwhile Dahlia's voice actress has literally voiced Rebecca from Resident Evil since the game first came out). I'd also like to give props to Oslo's voice actor, for succeeding in making Oslo creepy as all hell.

Heh. Oh, Mahad's VA.

Now...the negatives. Due to the CG style of the show, a lot of the designs could get a bit samey. Looking at some of the concept art for the series...it was supposed to look a LOT more interesting, with Brigs being big burly soldiers, Diwan and Oslo wearing some sort of weird dress/robe style that made them kinda look like Jedi, Dahlia was supposed to actually look like someone who's angry enough to rip your nose off, Vector was supposed to have a kickin' rad trenchcoat, and Mahad...actually was supposed to look like a legitimate badass. Lena too but in the CG art she's still clearly a badass, though it took awhile for her powers to fit her appearance. The other big flaw...and really the BIGGEST flaw, is the episodic nature of the show. When you can throw episodes around in a random order and still have the series make perfect sense, the episodes are WAY too episodic. This is the elephant in the room for this series, and part of why I don't think I'd give Skyland a second watch (to be fair, second watches are rare for me anyway). The lack of any real connection between episodes is sad, especially when we get things like the Symbionte and Celcia. They would of been cool to show up again, or be part of the main cast. We did get SOME nods to continuity, in the last two episodes where we reflected a bit on the Great Wall, and we got to see Cale again. And we got to see Mahad's friends from Babylonia again so that's nice! But like...that aside, the only character who isn't directly part of the main cast, that shows up more then twice...is Petricui, who's defining character trait is that he doesn't trust Lena. Now, another sort of big flaw is that there is a lot still left unexplained in all this. Where did these Prophecies come from, what EXACTLY is the time frame of all this, what exactly does the Prophecy mean exactly...why did they NOT use The Origin ever again? Stuff like that. But all that is really just an aspect of this problem with continuity. If this show had more interconnectedness going for it, it'd be a lot better.

Yeahh....

As for how it compares to the books? No clue, can't read em! The only plot summary I've got shows that a lot of the questions I have about the setting actually get answered in the book...and more or less shows that this show is basically just one giant fan fiction set in the book universe, based on how different they appear to be in scale. But again, can't speak bloody italian and shockingly, no one has tried translating this YA novel series during the massive YA Novel Boom we had in the last few years. Hell, it's a three book series about people throwing magical powers at each other, with a female main character. Hollywood, throw money at this like you did Hunger Games!

Wait, it was French people translating an Italian book into an English television show? Oh dear. It's surprising it was as good as it was with all that, then. I thought it was just a French book series.

So yeah...that's Skyland: The New World. All in all, I did not regret this. It was enjoyable, and we got a good few laughs out of it. As for what I'm doing next? Well...I'll leave you guys to discuss this until Monday, if that's alright with the Mods. After which, I've got a surprise. Some of you will be surprised earlier then others, because although you didn't know it...this thread had a contest

Was a nice thread, even if it didn't attract that much attention overall, aye.

[LaZodiac]

Was a nice thread, even if it didn't attract that much attention overall, aye.

Maybe my next one will. Gotta have people participating!

Also, you're not off the hook just yet, posted a bonus episode

...though good luck reading all the text I lovingly went over

[Coidzor]

Maybe my next one will. Gotta have people participating!

Also, you're not off the hook just yet, posted a bonus episode

...though good luck reading all the text I lovingly went over

Indeed.

Not much to say. It looks fairly good for concept art and the game was silly.

Yeah, most of it was unreadable in the video, but, well, if the website's still up...

[LaZodiac]

Indeed.

Not much to say. It looks fairly good for concept art and the game was silly.

Yeah, most of it was unreadable in the video, but, well, if the website's still up...

Yeah, sorry it was unreadable. I've managed to get mooost of the kinks of the recording process for possible later projects (more on that friday) so that won't be an issue.

The main things I pointed out in the text was that Dahlia's bio says she finds Mahad's personality "both disgusting and alluring"

So basically Dahlia is intended to be Tsundere as all hell.

[Coidzor]

Yeah, sorry it was unreadable. I've managed to get mooost of the kinks of the recording process for possible later projects (more on that friday) so that won't be an issue.

The main things I pointed out in the text was that Dahlia's bio says she finds Mahad's personality "both disgusting and alluring"

So basically Dahlia is intended to be Tsundere as all hell.

Well, y'know, designated love interest in a children's television show inspired/influenced by anime. I don't think you're allowed to have any other kind of love interest, honestly.

[Durkoala]

Yeah, sorry it was unreadable. I've managed to get mooost of the kinks of the recording process for possible later projects (more on that friday) so that won't be an issue.

The main things I pointed out in the text was that Dahlia's bio says she finds Mahad's personality "both disgusting and alluring"

So basically Dahlia is intended to be Tsundere as all hell.

Well, the art was nice. Oslo's robe made me realise that Sphere dress code apparently includes having no hair. I just thought it was because he was on chemo and Diwan had a razor fetish or something. I would have liked to seen Mahad's coat because that is awesome, and it's amazing what a little bit texturing does on the other characters.

Well, Dahlia's doing better than I am: I can't find Mahad's personality at all.
Seriously, I wish there had been more focus on Dahlia. A Tsundere pirate against a dictatorship with no known relatives very likely has a great (and sad) backstory.

[LaZodiac]

Well, the art was nice. Oslo's robe made me realise that Sphere dress code apparently includes having no hair. I just thought it was because he was on chemo and Diwan had a razor fetish or something. I would have liked to seen Mahad's coat because that is awesome, and it's amazing what a little bit texturing does on the other characters.

Well, Dahlia's doing better than I am: I can't find Mahad's personality at all.
Seriously, I wish there had been more focus on Dahlia. A Tsundere pirate against a dictatorship with no known relatives very likely has a great (and sad) backstory.

The biggest problem I've noticed with Dahlia is they want to write her in a unique cool way and just don't really know how...and then for like half of the entire series her actress is apparently just ****in' GONE because Dahlia doesn't even show up. Hell, Wayan starts getting actual development purely because Dahlia just stops existing for awhile. It's really weird.

Yeah, Mahad looks like a BADASS in his art, which is why the CG bothers me just a touch more now. They had some really interesting ideas...and then the CG of the time failed them.

[Rawhide]

Plans are in motion as for what I'm doing next. You'll see on Monday at the earliest, Friday at the latest

I guess it became the Friday... *le sigh*

The Fortress of Despair, Block 1

Oh, Oslo. They've played direclty into his hands. Actually, how are they both fitting on top of a cube which is only large enough for their mom to fit inside while sitting in a chair.

The cubes are huge, absolutely massive, enough for dozens of Hyperion sized ships to land on them. The single prison cell inside each is tiny.

Fortress of Despair, Block A

So that's a lot bigger than a single cell, after all. Looks like an interrogation chamber and a cell.

As above, the actual cell she's in is tiny. The cube is huge. They are now inside her huge cube, but not inside her tiny cell.

Obviously they had a spare.

Which Dahlia would have used had she not been occupied with Diwan.

Good luck. Also, the cubes are like block sized, sorry I couldn't get that cross too well.

Also, I've done a thing, as a special bonus episode, as I couldn't get everything done today. Friday for sure though!

And this thing...IS A VIDEO!

Bonus Episode: Exploring Skyland

Length: 9:31

Just when I think I'm finally done with Skyland forever, you go and post another video .

By the way, I think there's a problem with the audio. I can't hear your voiceover.

In this video I go over the Skyland website! Which is still up for some reason!

For anyone who wants to visit the site in the video, go here.

Finally, the piece de resistance of this site...the Raid and Rescue game. In it, we explore very slippery controls (the Saint Naz insists on listing downwards, always) weird hit detection, and the day to day adventures of Cortes and his crew, before the Protagonists showed up and forced everything to suddenly happen.

Ah, the days where every show and movie had really crappy web game tie-ins.

Did you remember this game?

So yeah, that was the Skyland website, and unless you guys can find the Skyland graphic novel (I can't) that'll be it for Skyland.

There is a single copy of it available on Amazon right now.

There is a French information page here for a Skyland comic, with a four page extract (in French). There is a translation of the four page extract here.

---

It's in French, but I think you'll want to watch this video anyway.

Found this on the novels.

[LaZodiac]

I guess it became the Friday... *le sigh*

Just when I think I'm finally done with Skyland forever, you go and post another video .

By the way, I think there's a problem with the audio. I can't hear your voiceover.

Ah, the days where every show and movie had really crappy web game tie-ins.

Did you remember this game?

There is a single copy of it available on Amazon right now.

There is a French information page here for a Skyland comic, with a four page extract (in French). There is a translation of the four page extract here.

It's in French, but I think you'll want to watch this video anyway.

Found this on the novels.

I'm sorry, it's something that's out of my control. You kinda know why but you can PM me later if you want more. Again though, sorry

Hey, I wanted to do a bonus video. Sorry . Also no there isn't a problem with any audio track, because there is no Zodi Audio. I think I even mentioned that I don't HAVE a mic, so there wouldn't be any talkity talking from yours truly.

Unfortunately that game isn't available on the site, and I don't have an i-device to play a slot car game.

Doesn't ship to Yellowknife

I already know the details of the novels, but thanks for posting that. I'm really interested in reading the damn things and as far as I can tell there is no English translation. They just seem so different from the cartoon.

[Rawhide]

Also no there isn't a problem with any audio track, because there is no Zodi Audio. I think I even mentioned that I don't HAVE a mic, so there wouldn't be any talkity talking from yours truly.

Uhh, I don't recall you mentioning it anywhere.

Though, it is something that you positively, absolutely, will need for your next project. So you should probably get on that...

Doesn't ship to Yellowknife

No friends in the US? Contact them to ask if they could arrange shipping to Canada? Use a re-shipping company (they have a US address, and for a slight shipping and handling fee, will accept the mail and reship it to your address)?

Did you check out the 4 page comic excerpt? Also that book preview video?

[LaZodiac]

Uhh, I don't recall you mentioning it anywhere.

Though, it is something that you positively, absolutely, will need for your next project. So you should probably get on that...

No friends in the US? Contact them to ask if they could arrange shipping to Canada? Use a re-shipping company (they have a US address, and for a slight shipping and handling fee, will accept the mail and reship it to your address)?

Did you check out the 4 page comic excerpt? Also that book preview video?

Ah, my bad.

And naw, not to be too spoilery for what my next project is, but I'm thinking of going with subtitles instead. Or having the bulk of my thoughts in text like I normally do, to help incite discussion.

There are, but I also don't have money so...

I did check those out. The book preview video was pretty cool, but the 4 page excerpt from the Comicon book has me hyped as hell. It showed Oslo straight up killing people by blowing up their mosquito's with his mind. "The sun has risen" indeed.

[LaZodiac]

Okay, it's (my time anyway) Friday! So it's time to reveal my new project! And it's one that you'll all have a say in...for you see, in this thread the three people who contributed the most to discussion got to choose a game, and I put it in this list. Everyone gets to vote on a game in that list, and on Monday the order they are in are the order that I'll do video threads for them! Additionally, starting now every game thread I make is going to have a contribution reward, based on the game in question.

Here is the poll: What Game Is Next?

Now, here are the description of these games, for those of you unaware of them! I'll also be detailing what kind of thread is to be expected.

1. The Legend of Zelda The Minish Cap: One of the Legend of Zelda games, specifically the top down ones ala Link to the Past. I'll be getting 100% in this one, and the thread will be discussing the timeline to SOME degree but mostly just discussing the events of the game and stuff. You know, fun stuff!

2. Zack and Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure: A point and click adventure game for the Wii! We're a pirate with an ancient mayan monkey-bell thing that can turn living beings into artifacts (from people into blocks, from frogs into frogbombs). Our hero is questing on this island with his rabbit pirate crew family to find the legendary treasure of Barbaros! This will be a 100% run, and we'll be discussing piratey stuff, the point and click genre, and likely talking about real treasures and stuff that all the treasure is based on. It'll be neat! Yarhar.

3. Sproggiwood: A roguelike town building game where you play as...I'm not quite sure. Point is you're someone who has to create a town and use it's inhabitants to clear out dungeons because it's a roguelike! It's based on Finnish mythology. As far as I'm aware it has an ending that is at least achiveable and I'll be trying to get 100%. Full disclosure I'm getting a free copy of the game for doing this as a review copy but I'm not being influenced in any way on what I'm going to say about it. We'll hopefully be discussing the genre of Roguelikes, mythology, and probably will include lots of yelling at me because I'm bad at the game since it's a game I'll be playing blind! Also, I will be trying to get some real "from the horses mouth" as it where information from Finnish people to talk about things we see in game, so that'll be fun.

With that, you have until Monday to vote in the poll linked above. Enjoy!

[Coidzor]

Huh, that Sproggiwood game sounds rather interesting in premise. I'm still not sure I quite grokked all of it. XD