Carl's Doomsday Scenario: Dungeon Crawler Carl Book II (Matt Dinniman, Kindle eBook)



Now that Dungeon Crawler Carl has laid the foundation, the second book is here to start building a cohesive narrative over it. Well, two, actually. The first half of the book has Carl teaming up with an exiled half-elf princess to take on a circus that was corrupted by a monster plant, and the second half takes Carl and Donut to a town of bird people where occult shenanigans are brewing. But notice I said "start building," there are a number of things that are set up here, but very much left open so future books can continue building on them.

And for anyone who might be interested, while the Dungeon Crawler Carl series is mostly a comedy with the sassy AI and pop culture references (I mean, it's a LitRPG about a man running around a fantasy dungeon in his underwear with a talking cat), there is some dark shit under the surface, particularly when Carl starts reminiscing on his abusive father.

Rating:

Army of the Fantastic (Edited by John Marco and John Helfers)



The cover and back synopsis make it look like these are stories that pit contemporary military against the fantastic, but only two of the stories are like that; one where Hitler has a dragon under his employ (which reminds me, I really need to read the rest of the Temeraire series), and one where the US Army finds a gateway to a magic version of Britain, then does the American thing and declares war on it. I guess some could tenuously be connected to the idea like the one about a magical army discovering scientific weapons, and the one about fairies threatening to invade Iowa but doesn't escalate into a military conflict.

The story I remember the most, though I'm not sure if I'd call it my favorite (then again, the only other one that made much of an impression on me was the aforementioned US Army vs. Magic Britain story), was "Brothers in Arms," the one with the brothers that fused with golems to fight in a war between two gods from another dimension. One brother hated how the golem body alienated him from his humanity - particularly how he couldn't feel anything while inside of it, a sentiment Cliff Steele would sympathize with - while the other reveled in it.

But most of the stories feel like somebody lifted a battle scene from a fantasy book and left me wondering, well, where's the rest of it?

Rating:

Final Fantasy Legend III (Game Boy)



Yeah, it's not the worst thing I've ever played, it's just a generic JRPG that doesn't have anything to offer over, say, Secret of Mana.

As you get late into the game, the mutant characters completely outclass the humans (and I never saw a benefit to turning any of them into a monster or robot). The humans are better at physical attacks while the mutants are better at magic, but late-game magic completely blows physical attacks out of the water; why moderately damage one enemy when you can severely damage the entire enemy party with a Quake or a Flare? Limited MP? Yeah, at the start of the game that's a problem, plus early spells only damage one enemy anyway, but once your MP pools get large enough it doesn't matter anymore. For the last several dungeons, I was spamming party-wide attack spells to get the battles over as quickly as possible. I think the mutants are also supposed to be squishier than the humans, but what does it matter when you're wiping the enemy party before they have a chance to attack?

The only time the humans can compete with the mutants is boss battles since there's only one target (that, or they're flanked by two adds that go down on the first or second turn anyway). The final boss has a nasty habit of attacking last on one turn then first on the next, and if he decides to fire off two Flares in a row like he did the first time I fought him, well, fuck you!

Rating: