AP2 DRAFT 6, Chapters 8-19: COMPLETE!

Ah, it feels good to be blazing through these chapters so quickly. Low on problems, high on entertainment! About the only thing slowing me down at this point are good, OPTIONAL ideas.

I will have to go backwards a bit to implement one good idea, but it shouldn’t take long. This ‘new thing’ is actually a solution to something Kim complained about a while ago. She thought a character’s behavior was boring and that I had to do better. I thought it was fine at the time, but gosh, working on the same book for years really gives you an opportunity to think. 😁

Okay, here’s what I’ve been watching/playing. I took a break from Mewgenics, but I’ll be back for more later, just like Guillotina. 😅

 

Hazbin Hotel Season 2: After I finished the current season of Fallout, I had some time left on my Amazon Prime trial. So I decided to watch—WAIT! What’s this!? A new hit game has appeared! Pokopia!? I forgot about all about it! Let’s get this shipped to my apartment, stat!

Pokopia: Now, I had not played a Pokémon game in years. Probably decades. But I heard this game was made by the same team that gave us the Dragon Quest Builders series. And oh man, let me tell you about those Builders games.

Dragon Quest Builders 1+2: Forget Minecraft and all that ‘sandbox’ nonsense. Writing is my sandbox; when I play a game I need to be told what to do like a good little drone. And these Builders games have a story. They have PURPOSE. They take place in the ruined worlds of Dragon Quest, and you must build back the original towns from those games. And as you build, the people congregate. They populate. And they give you little heart points so that you can unlock more things to create. But enough about that. 😅

Pokopia: This NEW game takes that Builders formula and supercharges it with HUNDREDS of pokémon that all want to live in your towns. It even uses the same premise of DQB: the Pokémon world has been destroyed. Yes, the setting is post-apocalyptic. ALL the humans are gone. A disaster has left civilization in shambles.

You awake as a Ditto: a shape-shifting pokémon that morphs into a humanoid form. You can do the usual brick-busting and crafting, but to get the other pokémon to return, you must create specific ‘habitats’ in order for them to appear.

At first it’s just easy stuff like ‘four clumps of grass,’ but later the habitats require you to craft tables, windmills—sometimes even powering up devices with electricity—in order for more pokémon to appear.

Now here’s where it gets a bit nuts: there are over two hundred pokémon in the game. Maybe three hundred. I don’t know; I’m just going off the numbers I see in the pokédex. And ALL of them can live in your towns. Yes, you can even build houses for them, fill them with furniture, whatever.

I’m sure people that have played every single ‘main’ game in the series are excited to see their favorite pokémon live in their cities. But for someone like me who missed multiple ‘generations,’ it’s just hilarious to see all the crazy things I’ve missed. I never know WHAT is going to pop out of the habitats I’ve created.

For instance, one habitat plan wanted me to make a bread oven and place it next to a plate of food. I’m thinking ‘What in the world sort of thing wants to live in an oven?’ So I wait a while and then this appears:

Yes, it’s a puppy MADE out of bread dough. FIDOUGH. I don’t know how you’re supposed to do battle with a half-baked donut mutt in the main games, but in THIS game he’s a helpful pup.

Oh, I didn’t mention that EVERY pokémon has a useful non-combat ability. You can easily invite five of them to come with you as you explore. Fidough can sniff out hidden treasures, for instance. Torchic can bake bricks out of clay. And there’s also Trubbish, a kind of bizarre garbage-bag-looking pokémon that eats trash and spits out iron ore. Yes, IRON ORE, the backbone of every crafting game. So every day I wade into a group of refuse-based abominations in order to get more. 😆

There is also a bit of a story as you find journals left behind by certain humans. And there’s a pretty moving ending once you complete enough quests. (It’s actually possible to miss the backstory behind the ruined world. Pokémon can’t read, so only the player is clued in.)

But for the most part, the story is about rebuilding various areas. Each zone has a few NPCs that give you a big goal to accomplish, like throwing a giant party, and you gotta figure out how to get it all done. Then a legendary pokémon shows up and makes a volcano erupt or something.

Man, I gotta end this review. Not because I’m running out of good things to say, but because I’m tired of going up into the ‘special character’ button to find that ‘é’ symbol. I guess I could have used copy/paste. 😅

Hazbin Hotel Season 2: Okay, for real this time. I did watch it. Remember what happened last season? A bunch of demons in Hell were trying to come up with a way to redeem sinners that were ALREADY in Hell. By running a hotel complete with therapy sessions for SINNERS. They also had to fend off an extermination team from Heaven. And don’t forget that EVERY episode has musical numbers with lyrics.

This season is no different, and the show writers seem to have been influenced by Les Miserables, the musical play about finding redemption in the midst of an impending war. Because there’s a WAR coming to Hell. You see, the angels are quite upset that demons fought back and killed Adam, the commander of Heaven’s army.

Let’s go over the characters again, except the ones I forgot about.

Charlie – The hotel manager and daughter of Lucifer. She somehow redeemed Sir Pentious during the finale of last season, and she’s trying to prove it to everyone in Hell so that they’ll come to her hotel and STOP FIGHTING.

Sir Pentious – A snake-like demon that gets redeemed. He’s in Heaven this season, trying to adjust. I know I said this last time, but I think it’s hilarious that the angels THEMSELVES are confused about how sinners are redeemed. They just straight up don’t know.

If I was a pastor I’d use this show as a sermon example. “Friends,” I’d say, “Without Jesus there is no path to redemption. Take, for instance, the Amazon Prime show Hazbin Hotel. There is no savior there. The demons don’t know how to escape damnation. The angels are stupified about how to help. Without Jesus there is only confusion! Misguided snake monsters and their egg minions sing about their unfulfilled lives! They are LOST. Come to Jesus! Don’t wander aimlessly like Angel, the four-armed demon prostitute!”

Pretty good, right? Too bad I have Social Anxiety Disorder. 😭

Vox Populi – This evil TV guy was in the previous season along with a bunch of other evil Hell Lords. The problem was, they didn’t do much of anything. But this season Vox is rallying the other Hell Lords in an attempt to take over all of Heaven. He also runs a smear campaign against Charlie and the hotel. And he does NOT have S.A.D. He talks non-stop and struts around like a JoJo character.

Not only does he get more screen time, but we also get a BACKSTORY. Yes, we see Vox as a human! Shoot, I didn’t even know these guys used to be alive. The show didn’t even EXPLAIN how these demons came to be until now. I assumed they were fallen angels or something.

So thanks, show writers!

Alister – We also get a backstory for the demon with the deer horns and the radio-like voice. Turns out he was a murderer on Earth, shot to death by a hunter that mistook him for a buck while he was out in the woods burying a victim. Now THIS is entertainment! More backstories! MORE!

We also learn that Alister is enslaved to another demon. He spends most of the season trying to escape this situation by becoming Vox’s slave. It’s all rather convoluted, but we get some cool songs out of it. 😅

Husk – This is the demon that’s voiced by Keith David, the voice of Goliath. We don’t get a backstory for him, and that’s too bad. He has cool gambling-based magic, but doesn’t seem to do much except pout about Angel.

Angel – A four-armed male prostitute. What’s the story with these Goro guys? Are they from another planet? All we learn about Angel this time is that he was ALSO a murderer in his previous life.

I was about to say he doesn’t do much either, but then I remembered that he was brainwashed into spying for Vox this season. Because Vox somehow has hypnotic swirly-eye powers now? 😵

Oh dang I forgot to say something about Vox. I was impressed that the writers had him use slogans from both sides of the ‘political spectrum’ that we have in the U.S.

To be more specific, Vox uses ‘RESIST’ from the anti-Trump side, while also singing about ‘making Hell great again.’ (A variation of Trump’s slogan. Trump is president of the United States, by the way. I know some people don’t really pay attention to this stuff, so I just thought I’d tell you.)

So thank you, show writers, for making this horrific Demon Lord impartial, as far as human political affairs are concerned.

Lute – An angel that is quite angry at the demons for killing Adam. She sings a song about gravity. That brings me to my next point.

Songs: I only recall the melody of one song this time: the gravity song I just mentioned. And not just because Abandonment Party has a gravity-loving girl. Well, that’s part of the reason. This gravity song is an amazing ‘villain song’ and I’m a sucker for those.

But you know what I’m NOT a sucker for? Having this song be so good… but then the person singing it does almost NOTHING during the rest of the season! What in the world!? Lute shows up in the final battle, at least. BREIFLY.

Oh, the song before that final battle was pretty good too. It’s a ‘One Day More’ from Les Mis type song. That’s when every character that you’ve ever seen starts singing about the coming war or big event. And then they’re all overlapping with each other and singing tunes from earlier songs. It’s a good one, although you just can’t beat ‘One Day More.’

The finale song itself is also quite the show-stopper. Every character sings, while they all charge up some sort of energy ball to save the day.

Let’s see, what else? I’m trying not to cheat here by looking anything up. If I have to look it up then it wasn’t memorable! (I did have to look up Lute’s name, though. PUT HER IN MORE EPISODES! LIKE GRAVITY!)

Ah—there’s a song Husk did. It’s not as good as his ‘Loser Baby’ song from last season, though. This time he’s singing about finding good things in a bottle while he goes crawling back to the casino he used to work at. I’m not really the drinking type; I would have PREFERRED a gambling song. I just love slots.

And there’s only ONE good gambling song in all of film/TV history. Yes, I’m talking about the Oogie Boogie Song from Nightmare Before Christmas.

Please, more gambling songs! Oh! Wait! There is one more. The opening song from Casino Royal. Whew! Okay maybe that’s enough for now, then. Save it for next season.

Anyway, immediately after Husk’s song, Angel comes out and does a Jessica Rabbit style number in drag. Yes, Angel also does nightly performances at the casino that Husk just happened to go to. Not sure how this guy finds the time to work at a casino; be a prostitute; be a ‘film star;’ AND be at the hotel all the time while ALSO being a brainwashed spy reporting in to Vox all season. Maybe the days in Hell are longer. 🤣

Hm, then there was a duet that Charlie and Vag sang. Vag? Was that really her name? Something about finding love in Hell. I’m not really into love, either. This song gets a B-.

That’s all I can think of. Vox had an evil song when his past was being explained, but I was too interested in the story to care about the song. So chalk that one up to being on the tip of my tongue.

I know I could just bring them over from YouTube, but I won’t. Songs from musicals shouldn’t be seen out of context unless you’ve seen it IN context first! It’ll spoil the experience! Except the Oogie Boogie Song, you can listen to that one.

The action: Yes, this show has action sequences. My main problem with this stuff is that there’s no explanation of how these demons’ powers work.

It’s still cool, though. Great animation. It just isn’t very satisfying when someone wins because you don’t know HOW they won. Like the energy beams at the end of the finale! Every character can just ‘give power?’ It only makes sense when Goku from Dragon Ball Z does it. 😅

The F Bombs: The first season used these as the ‘punchline’ for many of the gags. And this season does tone it down a bit. But they’re still there. just don’t get it. Do people that swear really think it’s funny? And how is it supposed to be shocking when EVERY character does it? C’mon.

Ah well. In the end I was entertained, yet again. I’ll be back the next time Fallout has a new season. Have a great Easter, everyone! Remember! Jesus saves, NOT doing the exact opposite of whatever your greatest sin on Earth was! 🥳