Knightmare Arcanist (Shami Stovall, Kindle eBook)



Volke Savan dreams of being an Arcanist, somebody who can use magic by bonding with a magical creature, but his dreams seem dashed when his attempt to bond with a Phoenix goes horribly wrong. Through a stroke of luck he gets another chance and ends up bonding with a Knightmare named Luthair, a suit of armor formed from darkness and fear with a strong sense of honor and justice seeking revenge against his previous Arcanist's murderer. This brings some problems as a creature is shaped by its Arcanist (think of it like wearing a suit tailored for somebody else), so while Luthair isn't uncooperative or antagonistic with Volke it's still difficult for Volke to use the abilities Luthair bestows upon him.

This is the first in an eight-book series so it's mainly setting the pieces on the board, but the actual game hasn't really kicked off yet. There's a theme about persevering when everything in your life is working against you and shit totally hits the fan at the end, but for the most part it's establishing the magic system, the vast array of creatures in the world that can be bonded with, a plague going around that drives magic creatures insane, and a rich asshole rival who appears to be being set up as the book's Draco Malfoy but has a far quicker turnaround. And when Volke's childhood hero is brought into the mix... you can tell where that goes.

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Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne (Written by Grant Morrison, Each Issue Illustrated by a Different Team)



There's an old Looney Tunes cartoon - at least I'm pretty sure this exists and is a Looney Tunes cartoon and I didn't dream this, I've tried to figure out what the cartoon is called and the closest I got was "Duck Amuck" which isn't it - where the animator keeps messing with Daffy's appearance and repeatedly asking something like "is it still Daffy?" And yes, not matter what changes the animator makes to Daffy, he's still Daffy. Fitting that Warner Bros. owns DC because this comic is the Batman equivalent of that.

On the surface Return of Bruce Wayne is about the entire Justice League trying and failing to outwit their smartest member before he accidentally destroys reality, but go a little deeper and it's a metastory about no matter how many changes a writer makes to Batman, he's still Batman. He may be in another time wearing a different getup, but he's still recognizable as the world's greatest detective, the Caped Crusader, the Dark Knight, or whatever else you want to call him. Although I'd like to hear Grant Morrison explain how the Goddamn Batman fits into this.

At the end of Batman: R.I.P. Bruce was backstabbed by somebody he'd put his trust and heart into but was saved by his genuine friends and allies. And again at the end of Return of Bruce Wayne, it's his friends who save both him and reality. As well as a metastory about character continuity, the trilogy is a reminder that there are people out there who only care about you as far as what they can get out of you, but you can't forsake everybody to protect yourself from those people.

The art for most issues is great, but while the style for the witch trial issue is nice and the wild west issue is... passable, the artists both seem to struggle with human faces (what the hell is going on with Bruce's mouth here? And the faces in the wild west issue range from weird to just plain ugly). I know this is probably petty, but it goes to show how important the face is to human emotion.

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The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap (GBA, E10+)



Ready for another story from the "teenage Codie was a stupid dumbass" archives? I first played this game all the way back when it first released, cleared the first dungeon, got to the mountain leading to the second dungeon, and... could not figure out how to get up it. And I deleted my data before I started this playthrough, so I can't go back and see if I even got the bottle you need to get up it (FFS young me, there's a Deku Scrub that tells you his nearby friend has an item you'll need for the area), or if I was just too stupid to figure out you can put water in it. So every time I saw somebody gush about Minish Cap and how it's an amazing addition Nintendo's latest download service, it'd take me back to my youth where I was to much of an idiot to solve a puzzle in, like, the third main area of the game.

Having finally conquered that childhood ghost, it was smooth sailing until I got to the final dungeon and got stuck at the very beginning because I kept walking past a bombable wall. You know, when I was a kid playing Link to the Past for the first time I could not figure out how to finish the first dungeon in the Dark World. I went on to clear the other dungeons, but when I got to Turtle Rock Zelda's all "Oh no, there's still some maidens trapped!" So what was going on? There's a bombable wall in the room where Zelda speaks to you through a telepathy tile that, for whatever reason, I kept overlooking. And when I replayed Link to the Past when I was much older, I still missed that wall for a while. Maybe it's the color of the walls, like I can't see cracks on dark blue bricks. Doesn't help that the rupee counter obscures the one in Minish Cap when you enter that room through the north door.

The main game is a charming adventure with a neat little size-changing mechanic, but the bosses are kind of a pain in the ass. The arenas are simultaneously too big and too small, meaning the boss is often off-screen (I think the lava dragon was the only exception, though the giant ChuChu's arena isn't too much bigger than the screen), and yet there's somehow not enough room to work around the boss when it finally lunges at you (thinking about the giant octorok here). And oh my god, game, cool it with the Darknut encounters.

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