King's Quest VI - Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow (Real Review)

If you’ve read all the way through this review series you may have noticed I’m not as giving as most people expect with what’s generally considered one of the greatest of all adventure game franchises. Think of me what you will for that, and I’m sure you have. But this…this one was awesome.

In the course of rescuing his family from the evil wizard Mordack, King Graham befriended the beautiful Princess Cassima, who Mordack had enslaved. Some time after the ordeal, Prince Valiant Alexander finds himself unable to forget the dark-tressed maiden. Unfortunately her homeland of the Green Isles is so far away nobody in Daventry knows where it is. But like in every single even-numbered game in the series up to now, the plot device mirror strikes once again, and after seeing a vision of Cassima against the night sky he tries to sail there navigating via the stars he saw.

Eventually he does reach the Green Isles, but in the process finds out about the treacherous shoals that are why they get and send so few visitors. And on top of that, the kingdom isn’t so welcoming. Cassima’s parents died while she was Mordack’s captive, and none of the islands are talking to each other anymore under the rule of the vizier Abdul Alhazred. Again as Paw points out, this was the author of the Necronomicon, the authoritative book on black magic in Lovecraft’s stories. Hence, obviously evil. That and well, the fact that he’s a grand vizier.

Well, there was Quest for Glory II...

Since the game doesn’t give Alexander the option to go home (AND WHY SHOULD IT???) of course he starts poking his nose into the web of deceit and double-dealing the vizier’s woven in his quest for power.

Let’s get the presentational aspects out of the way. Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow looks at least as nice as Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder, but this is also the first game in the series where, to quote another review I saw of it once, I later looked back on it and didn’t think "I remember playing that" so much as "I remember being there." Like I wasn’t in a tiny microcosm with a diversity of improbable geographical features right next to each other. Like in, well, a videogame. Each of the Green Isles is vastly different from the others, but it works better than in previous games because, accordingly with the setting being a cluster of islands, each is contained in its own little space. You won’t be in front of a dark forest on one screen then two skareen lengths west you’ll be in a desert.

While this also means each area’s smaller than any given area in the previous game, each area also feels more alive. As if they concentrated more effort into each area rather than spreading themselves thinner over the whole game. The settings are more vibrant and the characters you meet feel more like actual characters instead of a font of potential clues or items once properly satisfied. The setting had become strong enough that for the first time in the series I didn’t feel like I was playing a game, I was on an adventure. 

Like in the last game, a version later came out that had full voices. As with the last game it has multiple characters assigned to each actor, but this time they went ahead and got actual professional actors. Like Robbie Benson, Townsend Coleman, Don Messick, Linda Gary of He-Man fame, and Tony Jay. Tony, truly the world is a darker place without you.

Even if all your good-guy roles I can think of are giant anthropomorphic animals...

In terms of features, the game introduces one that would’ve helped its predecessor but lost one of the good ideas the predecessor had. The voiced version gives you the option of having voiced dialogue or switching back to the original textboxes if you’d prefer. With that dialogue being provided by seasoned talent this time and as a result the number of stupid-sounding lines being down from the last game, I usually kept the voices on unless I was sending gifts to Cassima so I could listen to that “Girl in the Tower” song without somebody talking over it.

On the other hand, in Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder the game would tell you if you were about to watch a long cutscene and give you the option to skip it. Here that option’s gone, and there are a few times it’s sorely missed. The worst offender is when you go to the Isle of the Sacred Mountain and get to the top of the cliff. The winged people who live there arrest you, then because of some prophecy shove you in a trap-filled labyrinth until you save their princess (voiced by Russi Taylor??) from a minotaur.

This being an adventure game of the old school, you can’t back out once you’re in, meaning you’d better have everything you need before you climb the cliff. The rulers will give you a chance to get the stuff you need if you don't have it already, but the game gives you no hint of what you need, of course. When you come back, you'll be escorted to the maze, ready or not. If you haven't been diligently saving at milestones, you could end up stuck and having to repeat that lengthy cutscene again very easily. If not most or all of the game!

The biggest new future, though, is the game offers two different paths to victory. The idea of a single puzzle having more than one solution goes all the way back to the first game. In fact, back in the day Sierra was kind of notorious for giving you a direct if violent option but giving you a higher score if you could think of a gentler one. But this was the first time the game actually gave you more than one nice little set of goals to reach the victorious ending.

Ultimately your goal is of course to get into the palace and save the princess from the wicked Vizier. This is obvious from the minute you meet him. But about halfway through the game you have the option of sneaking into the palace right away, or questing for further advantages with the help of a little magic you pick up along the way. The second option can lead to you getting not just all the puzzle points but also a much more complete and satisfying ending depending on if you accomplished certain tasks and just how thoroughly you unraveled the villain’s schemes.

Honestly, until I was partway through the longer path I didn’t even know there was an easier way to win the game (Give me a break, only two screens into the game the key item's just sitting on the counter of a store. As soon as you touch it, the guy even gives you a quest where he'll trade it for another item. In an adventure game, that's the equivalent of a flashing neon sign saying "YOU NEED THIS".). And since I was playing the most satisfying game in the series, even at the tender age of twelve I didn’t want to cheat myself of the full experience. Originally I just thought because there was a spellbook in the game, you were supposed to use it; that’s what you had to do the last time you played this character.

As for puzzles, for the most part they’re not bad at all, especially compared to Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder’s. A few headscratchers seem inevitable, though. As I mentioned, in the longer path through the game you need to find a spellbook, but since you don’t have any money you need to find an equally rare book to trade for it instead. If you’re the type to play this kind of game you’re probably investigative enough to want to read the rare book before handing it over, but all the game calls attention to is one missing page and the fragments of the border pattern you can make out.

See though, the rare book is a book of riddles, and you can find a scrap of that missing page nearby. Specifically, the answer to the riddle. Later on in the game you do use the answer, but it feels really weird that the scrap of paper with the answer’s supposed to be a clue when nothing about the riddle itself is given by the book. You’re confronted with a riddle, and the piece of paper from a riddle book with an answer is supposed to be the answer, was apparently the thought process behind that whole puzzle. I can't help but notice that the novelized version of this game in The King's Quest Companion actually says the riddle was still in the book, and only the answer was missing.

If I have one big regret about this game it’s that the final showdown with the villain isn’t as satisfying as it was with Mordack, even getting to hear I’d accomplished everything to get the complete ending afterward. Still and all, this is without a doubt where the King’s Quest series peaked. Too bad that also means it’s all downhill from here.

But talking about what’s wrong with The Princeless Bride puts me in kind of an awkward position. For now, this is probably the end of the King’s Quest articles. I’m sure that sound was the internet’s heart breaking.

Howl of the Werewolf

Of all the writers who could’ve come back to write new Fighting Fantasy books, I’m glad in no small way that the one who did was John Green. His work was consistently good more often than any other contributor to the series, and here he’s written what’s easily one of the greatest books in Fighting Fantasy history.

Finding yourself caught out in some spooky woods with no sign of civilization is bad enough, but it gets even worse when you find yourself surrounded by abnormally large wolves. After one bites you it turns out they weren’t wolves at all but lycanthropes, and unless you can find a cure before the next full moon in a few days you can look forward to becoming one yourself.

Tweaking the basic system of these books, whether it involved adding a magic system or a fear statistic, wasn’t always done well. Howl of the Werewolf did it very well. The maximums for combat skill and health scores while rolling up your character are lower than in most Fighting Fantasy books, but after pursuing a cure for a while the reason why becomes clear. When your transformation spikes, you’ll get stronger and gain lupine powers, like seeing in the dark and growing claws so you aren’t penalized for fighting without a weapon. It’s even possible to get your hands on a gun.

As you might expect it isn’t all good news, though. You have a score keeping track of how far along your change into a werewolf has progressed, and while it’s possible to push it back a little from time to time, the higher it is the harder it’ll be for you to ignore the beast within. And if you think people will care that you’re trying not to become a werewolf, be prepared to miss out on a lot of help.

Besides how well-implemented the mechanics are, the book’s an excellent piece of work from an atmospheric standpoint as well. Most of the book takes place in dark, oppressive forests, ruins or Bavarian-style villages full of distrustful locals, and the writing provides an excellent feeling of gothic horror.

Even a visit to the “carnivale” manages to keep you on edge. The excellent illustrations by Martin McKenna do plenty to enhance the atmosphere, and let it be a testament to how much I enjoy this book that I don’t want to damage my copy to scan pictures. As well, with the book being 115 sections longer than the books in the original series, there’s a ton of exploring to do.

The only problem I had with the book was the choice of monsters. There’s a ghost or two, some disturbing mutants, but mostly there’s a heaping helping of enemy lycanthropes. It’s appropriate, but after fighting the fourth one you’ll start to wonder if there weren’t any other appropriately creepy monsters Green could have mixed in.

It’s not that big a problem, though, and if you like solo role-playing with a good dash of horror, you’ll like this book. Do yourself a favor and pick it up now.

Villains and Vigilantes - Terror by Night

 
***This review of an RPG adventure is for GMs’ eyes only***

Unlike Into the Sub-Realm, which was a standard if perhaps overly difficult superhero adventure, Terror by Night doesn’t have the fate of the world, the city or even large amounts of money at stake. There are no brightly-garbed thugs with inhuman powers just waiting for superheroes to show up so they can start flinging sarcastic quips around. What it does have is a circus. And a vampire.

Edward Cullen wasn’t the first vamp to be shaken out of the tedium of ages by love for a mortal woman. Victor von Heinrich has had his passions stirred by a beautiful NPC in your campaign city, but being a practical lord of the night he wants to study other features of the modern world that popped up while he was sleeping for centuries. Like superheroes. So disguised as an eccentric millionaire he buys a circus and brings it to town, planning to earn the beauty’s love and in the process test the mettle of today's champions.

Terror by Night's an excellent break for groups tired of saving the world all the time. If your players fall back on their instincts and march into the circus spoiling for a fight when they start to suspect something’s up, Victor won’t reveal his vampiric powers and attack. He’ll call up the best lawyers money can buy and slap your players with as much litigation as he can manage. They may never even realize they’re up against an honest-to-goodness vampire, or that the woman doesn’t need saving. At least not from Victor.

Which isn’t to say there’s no action at all in this adventure. After sizing up the PCs through several non-combative encounters meant to make them suspicious, Victor will try to lure them into his funhouse where he’ll reveal the animatronic monsters have some surprises that are a threat even to superheroes. They’re pretty tough, too, but not ridiculous tough like some of the villains in Into the Sub-Realm. The GM’s even encouraged to make this fun rather than frustrating. Like sending someone well-suited to fighting in water against the Creature from the Black Lagoon, for example.

The module even has a dash of humor: one encounter is on the shoot of a remake of Plan 9 From Outer Space, perennial favorite for Worst Movie Ever Made. Involving whatever big-name actors the GM feels like including, yet.

If the module has a downside, it’s that the final act splits the players into ones and twos, which can be boring to the players not involved in the scene currently being played out. With the right pacing and some evocative narration (which the GM will have to come up with himself), however, even the observers can probably get into the creepy goings-on. As it is, it's an appropriate enough climax, but has to be handled carefully.

Besides having a villain who’s not really evil and more interested in toying with superheroes than getting them out of the way of his grand scheme, Terror by Night has something else V&V adventures almost never did: sequel hooks. To say Victor von Heinrich is a rarity among superhero RPG villains is an understatement, and the encouragement to get more use out of him was more than welcome.

Justice League - Comfort and Joy

Okay, the first Christmas review was pretty negative. Let’s see if I can turn things around.

Snow falls. A telepathic voice rings out across the desolate landscape. It’s the Martian Manhunter, actually a dazzling green hero of Earth, assuring the population of a far off planet that all will be well. For those of you who might not read comics, Martian Manhunter is an alien superhero like, well, Superman with immeasurable strength, speed, and a plethora of superhuman vision powers. But besides all the powers they gave Superman, they gave him most of the powers Superman didn’t have, too. Like telepathy. Potent enough to talk to everyone on an entire planet if necessary.

The problem MM and several other heroes are trying to prevent is another planet crashing into this one. They put together the pieces of a gigantic machine that repels the runaway planet just in time, and all the squid-thingies rejoiced.

Flash, the team goofus/skirt-chaser whose other power is being the fastest man alive, notes it’s a good way to kick off the Christmas season. MM, or to stave off developing Carpal Tunnel a little longer, J’onn, is unmoved. You see, despite being a lot like Superman in that he’s an alien hero with an array of mind-boggling powers, he didn’t grow up here, and instead came to Earth as an adult. As a result he has yet to learn the True Meaning of Christmas. “We’ll have to do something about that,” the Man of Steel remarks with a smile.

After the theme song, we cut back to the recently-saved planet where John Stewart, who’s a member of a group of interplanetary cops and wears a ring that can create anything he imagines, is using his phenomenal cosmic powers to go snow-boarding before heading home. Hawkgirl, a winged, mace-wielding woman and yet another alien in the team’s line-up (plus the only one with whom John shares underlying romantic tension), asks what’s so great about sliding down a hill when he flies through space all the time. Grammy Stewart took him sledding all the time as a kid and it was his favorite part of Christmas. She still doesn’t get it, even when John uses his ring to build a snowman, or when he makes a snow angel without it. He finally gets her attention by starting a snowball fight.

Back on Earth a lady at the Central City Orphanage promises some kids a visit by “that jolly man in the red suit.” The Flash, that is. They show him a commercial for the hot toy of the holiday season, DJ Rubba Ducky that dances and makes fart noises, that he promises to bring them for Christmas. And I don’t know if that’s the correct spelling, but it’s the kind of spelling a bunch of toy manufacturers trying to sound “hip” would use. So there.

Cut to Smallville, where Supes has brought J’onn down to the Kent homestead. He’s too much of a pal to let J’onn spend Christmas by himself, you see. Ma and Pa Kent immediately start acting like, well, parents to Earth’s greatest hero, not in the least bit intimidated by him. Which is awesome. Almost as awesome as when they meet J’onn.

J’onn:  “Hello Mr. and Mrs. Kent. I hope I’m not intruding. Super…Clark was most insistent I join you for the holiday. My name is J’onn. I’m a Martian.”
Kents: (basically) “Oh, hi. Come on in. So you’re a friend of Clark’s?”

When Clark takes J’onn upstairs to get him settled in Supergirl’s room (she’s away skiing with Batgirl), J’onn remarks on how non-Super he’s acting. That’s what Clark likes about coming home; he can just be Clark, and not the most powerful man in the world.

J’onn actually starts to untense a little as he looks over Supergirl’s collection of in-jokes, which getting him to do really is a job for Superman, until he learns cats hate him as much as they hate Sakaki.

Back on the other side of the universe John and Hawkgirl’s snowball fight has escalated to the point where they’re using their powers. Not unexpectedly, the guy who fights Sinestro wins.

Hawkgirl still doesn’t get the big deal about Christmas, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t know how to party. She gives John directions to this place she and her buddies would go to celebrate after successful battles. The only bad part thing in this episode (and it’s a fairly little one) appears here where she mentions she might never get back to her home planet. If they’re jetting around space without a care like this, why not?

Flash is running around looking for that he toy he promised, but even though he hits every toy store in town in under five minutes, DJ Rubba Ducky’s completely sold out. But don’t worry, this show has way too much class to turn into Jingle All the Way. A window display of Santa’s workshop gives him a brilliant idea and he runs to the factory in Japan where they make the toys. Because he’s the Flash and he can do that. Because he’s the Flash, they give him the last unshipped Rubba Ducky gratis. Because he’s the Flash, he has to make a little stop before dropping it off at the orphanage…

By the way, the guy from the toy company was named Mr. Hama. Was that a Johnny Bravo joke or something?

J’onn and the Kents are sitting around the kitchen table sipping hot cocoa and telling Christmas stories. Pa says Clark got so into Christmas they have to wrap his presents in lead foil so he can’t cheat with x-ray vision. He corrects them that SANTA wraps his presents in lead foil so he can’t cheat with x-ray vision. That’s…awesome, actually. See? Make the characters likable and don’t try too hard with the jokes, and it goes down a lot easier.

Ma made J’onn a sweater, and even though she didn’t know his size, it’s okay because one of the other powers Superman didn’t have was being a shape shifter. A little cheesy, but still kind of endearing.

"It says 'Joike'."

John and Hawkgirl get to a bar that makes the Mos Eisley cantina look tame. And Hawkgirl’s the Norm of space because everybody cheers her name as she comes in. She gets John to try some alien hooch, and it’s kind of like tequila except the worms in it are still alive. “Just one more thing would make this evening perfect,” she beams, then intentionally starts a bar fight. Everyone else looks at each other like they were too polite to start it themselves before jumping in.

Remember Flash? He hears an explosion as he gets back to town and finds the Ultra Humanite, a super-intelligent white gorilla, attacking an art museum because he’s offended by the shoddy artistic sensibilities on display. As any fight with the a guy who's super-fast logically would be, it’s pretty one-sided until Humanite lands on the Rubba Ducky doll.

They argue back and forth a little about what a hollow spectacle Christmas has become and trying to spread some good cheer to kids who can grow up knowing it’s the right thing to do for others. Flash really does sell this; I’m not surprised the VA’s played both the Flash and Lex Luthor. Flash gives Humanite permission to shoot him because he feels so rotten about letting the kids down, and gets pistol-whipped.

Flash wakes up to find out his words touched something in Humanite’s simian heart, and he’s going to fix up Rubba Ducky good as new. Better, in fact.

J’onn, tired of looking at Supergirl’s boy band posters, turns ghostly and floats through the house seeing Ma and Pa doing the dishes and Clark learning Santa’s still onto him. He turns into a regular guy and sees people meeting in a diner on Christmas eve. He super-hears a little girl thinking Santa is too real and her stupid brother will have egg on his face when the cookies she left out are gone in the morning. He stretches a hand down her chimney and finds out he shares his comic counterpart’s fondness for Oreos. He stands outside a church (something I’m kind of surprised they got away with including) as people sing inside and starts to realize just how much he’s been missing.

John and Hawkgirl are still fighting alien barflies. John treating it like he’s in a fight for his life and Hawkgirl just having a grand old time.

Flash finally gets back to the orphanage to make the drop with his special helper, Freaky the Snowman. Humanite turns on the toy and instead of just making fart noises it tells the kids the story of Clara and Herr Drosselmeyer. And wouldn’t you know it, they get into it.

Humanite gets dropped off at his regular cell, and Flash is there to give him a cheesy, fake Christmas tree. And as soon as he’s gone, Humanite turns on the lights and he gets into it.

It can be hard to tell with supervillains, but that's a smile.

Everybody’s finally too tired to keep fighting at the space bar, and Hawkgirl wakes up just long enough to give John a kiss on the cheek he’ll never know about.

The Kents wake up to hear J’onn singing Christmas carols in Martian. “And he said he didn’t bring a gift.”

Merry Christmas, Warner Bros. team. And thanks.

Kamen Rider V3

Dreamt up by Ishinomori Shotarou, the creator of many heroes to Japanese children, Kamen Rider has gone on to become one of the most iconic of all Japanese superheroes. As well, it’s considered the granddaddy of the “Henshin Hero” genre where the main character changes into a superhuman form to battle a different monster in each episode. There were hero shows that technically involved someone transforming into a superhero to battle monsters before (like Ultraman and its parade of sequels), but unlike Ultraman, Kamen Rider didn’t let an alien take over his body and grow to humongous size to fight. He was still a regular guy behind the mask, making him easier to relate to. And he rode a sweet, sweet motorcycle.

There’ve been a ton of sequels over the years repeating the same basic formula of “monster shows up, hero becomes Kamen Rider, destroys the monster, world is safe until next week.” Kamen Rider Amazon, X, Black, Kuuga, Ryuki, and Decade to name a few. Today we’ll talk about the second one, V3, but before that it’d help to explain the first.

Hongo Takeshi is kidnapped by Shocker, an Evil Organization bent on world domination by surgically altering people into half-animal mutant killers. Fortunately one of his old teachers happens to work for Shocker but has an attack of conscience, freeing Takeshi after he gets grasshopper-esque powers but before he’s lobotomized into a monster of the week, beginning Takeshi’s crusade against Shocker as the modified human, Kamen Rider. Problems arose when Takeshi’s actor, who did his own stunts, crashed his motorcycle and badly injured his leg. To work around this another Rider, Ichimonji Hayato, was introduced and Takeshi left to battle monsters offscreen while the actor recovered. Eventually the two Riders teamed up to destroy the evil Leader behind the monster menace once and for all.

Then there was “Rider Number 3! His Name is V3!”

A guy investigates an open manhole late at night and is rewarded for his curiosity when giant blades emerge and slice into him. Motorcyclist Kazami Shiro finds the man just before he melts, and a black car tries to run Shiro down. When his morning coffee sets the floor on fire Shiro starts to wonder if someone might have it in for him and confers with his mentor, none other than Hongo Takeshi. Takeshi tells his own mentor, Tachibana Tobei, what’s bugging Shiro, but Tobei laughs it off and says the Riders cut evil off at its source. He’s a little less sure after someone tries to blow Shiro up at motocross practice.

Scissored!

Takeshi sees a bunch of black-clad KKK members chant “Destron” and prepare a grave for him. These are, obviously, the guys after Shiro, but why the ceremony if they want to kill witnesses?

And kill witnesses is exactly what they try to do. After a woman named Junko sees a bunch of masked weirdoes enter a building and Shiro drops her off at his family’s place, the monster Scissors Jaguar attacks the house and kills Shiro’s relatives trying to get to Junko. And constantly says “Scissors!”

Before he can finish Junko the Riders show up and chase him away, but Shiro doesn’t take his ordeal well. He asks the Riders to give him powers like them even if means giving up his humanity, but they tell him it’s bad enough there’s the two of them and promise to take care of this “Destron.” Accepting they know what they’re talking about, Shiro lets the Riders take care of business. They storm the building Junko found which turns out to be Destron’s monster factory. They blow up the building with the leaders inside, and Japan is saved before the invasion’s even begun.

You didn’t buy any of that, did you? The Riders do attack the building but it’s a trap and they’re soon being fried by a cyborg-killing laser gun while the voice of the mysterious Shocker Leader, now head of Destron, taunts them. Shiro, being a hot-blooded youth in an action show, followed and saves them, but takes the laser himself in the process. Evidently figuring life as a cyborg is better than none, the Riders renege on their earlier words of wisdom and operate on Shiro to make him like them. Not sure how they can do that since the villains were the ones who operated on the two of them, and when Takeshi got a power-up it was because he let them capture him and implant upgrades before escaping again. But, whatever.

The building is rocked by blasts from another Destron Monster, Turtle Bazooka. Despite their unshakeable resolve it looks like he’s got the Riders right where he wants them until a red-masked combatant appears, Kamen Rider V3, leading straight into “Last Testament of the Double Riders.”

Trying to protect the new kid, perhaps, the Double Riders send V3 off to keep Destron from sinking Tobei’s office into the ground. Just making the earth swallow up the building wasn’t enough, it seems, they also sent Scissors Jaguar to take care of Tobei. V3 shows up in time to get Tobei away from the monster, then for some reason drops out of his superhero form as they make a break for it. Scissors Jaguar and some goons catch up to them but run away when the other Riders show up.

Junko offers her sympathies for Shiro's family, but he tells her to stay away from him for her own good, only for the show to immediately prove that’s exactly what she shouldn’t do when Scissors Jaguar tries to kidnap her. Shiro didn’t go far and changes into V3, only to realize he doesn’t know what his powers are. The other Riders are able to talk him through the fight with some convenient telepathy and tell him about a flying camera that he uses to find Scissors Jaguar after the monster escapes despite very clearly falling off a forty-foot cliff and exploding.

He finds Scissors Jaguar again, who goes into a plot-revealing gloat that Turtle Bazooka has a nuclear bomb planted in his body that’ll destroy Tokyo and Shiro will never get back in time to stop him. Except thanks to that convenient telepathy the other Riders heard everything he said and are on their way. They realize they won’t be able to beat Turtle Bazooka before the bomb ticks down, so they grab him and fly out over the ocean.

V3 destroys Scissors Jaguar by discovering the first of his moves, the V3 Revolving Double Kick, but can only watch as a huge mushroom cloud fills the sky…

Talk about starting things off with a bang (yes I'm aware these were meant to be the final two episodes of the previous show), Kamen Rider V3 is perhaps even more well-loved than its predecessor, and a lot of that can be chalked up to its star, played by Miyauchi Hiroshi. Kazami Shiro was his breakout role, and he’s since become one of the most recognizable figures on the Japanese superhero scene. Besides this show, he had roles in the first two Super Sentai, Himitsu Sentai Goranger and JAKQ Dengeki Tai (no wonder only the pink Goranger’s out of costume in the crossover), Kaiketsu Zubat, the mentor of Chouriki Sentai Ohranger, and a one-scene portrayal of Tachibana Tobei in Kamen Rider The First, an updated remake of the first show. Other Tokusatsu programming he’s appeared in include Space Sheriff Gavan, Exceedcraft, Solbrain, and as a two-time guest star in Toei’s…unique adaptation of Spider-Man.

While the personalities of henshin heroes have come a long way since the early 70’s, he manages to sell the tormented hero without seeming wangsty, soon moving from mourning his family to avenging them.

The cool thing about Shiro as V3 is he has twenty-six different powers, but because the original Riders got blown up without leaving him an instruction book he has to figure out what they are all by himself. He doesn’t even learn them all in the show. This angle isn’t really played up, but if you think about it’s an interesting touch of realism in a great but admittedly hokey show.

As for the rest of the cast, Tobei is a likable enough father figure for Shiro, if ultimately kind of goofy (you open the door to their secret base by reflecting light on a bowling ball). Except for those rare episodes where Shiro needs a kick in the ass to save the day, that is. He’s basically a slightly less serious version of Captain Mura from Ultraman.

Junko sadly wasn’t given much to do other than stand around and look pretty, and occasionally provide a handy hostage. Despite it looking like she’s going to try to bring Shiro out of his shell in the early episodes, their young love is dropped before long. All she really does besides get captured is work the radio for the Rider Scouts.

Ah yes, the Rider Scouts. A little something for the kids at home, it seems. The Rider Scouts were a group of schoolboys that would call V3 whenever they thought they found a Destron monster. Hey, it’s kids just like you, helping Kamen Rider save the world! How cool is that?! Believe it or not when we see their parents once in a blue moon, they’re totally supportive of letting their children run around looking for monsters.

As for the show itself, the characterization is kind of thin, Destron’s plots are over the top and the monsters are unconvincing. The music is kinda so-so, and more than once there’s stuff in front of the camera obscuring the action.

There's a fight happening in here somewhere...

Yet there’s a purity to this show, with its mannequins tumbling off bridges and missiles flying on strings, that the more recent Kamen Rider shows with all their digital effects lack. If you grew up on nice, safe Western children's fare, all the people the monsters kill, silly-looking or not, is just plain shocking. This show doesn't mess around.
 
As far as episodes go, there are a couple that are especially badass. Like…

Episodes 27-28: “Zol, Death, Hell and Black Rise From the Grave” and “The Five Commandants’ All-Out Attack!!”

A member of the Rider Scouts finds the bodies of several Shocker monsters, only for them to come back to life and menace Japan anew. They’re not the only ones; the Leader also revived Colonel Zol, Dr. Death, Hell’s Ambassador and Black Shogun, his commandants from the previous show, to help the current commandant, Doktor G, in a plan to kill everyone in Japan with poison gas.

With all the major bad guys from the original show in one place and a plan to wipe out all of Japan in one stroke, this was one of the most epic stories the show told. It’s a little disappointing that the Double Riders didn’t come back for these episodes instead of a few down the line (no, they didn’t stick with it. It was still a ballsy way to kick off the show). We could’ve had the early Kamen Rider version of Secret Wars.

This is still an awesome story, though. It’s cool seeing so many villains around the lone hero. Another nice touch was, when they find out Shiro’s been captured, Tobei and Junko come up with a plan to get captured too and save him. Once they’re in the Destron base, they find he already got away by himself. So he has to save them again, but it’s nice seeing that they’re as willing to put their lives on the line to stop Destron as V3 is.

The ending was a little disappointing; the Destron base blows up with the villains inside, but think about how awesome it would’ve been to have a battle royale with them in monster form first (the villains being able to turn into especially tough monsters in these shows). Nonetheless the numerous fights are satisfying, and it gives you an idea of just how evil Destron is if they’re willing to drag their dead members back from Hell if that’s what it takes to take over the world.


Episode 40: “Sudden Death! V3 Mach Kick!!”

The latest Destron commandant, Archbishop Wing, has lost monster after monster thanks to V3 and the Leader warns him if things don’t change, Wing is next. When V3 tries to fight the new monster, Deadman Bat, he loses hard and in the process injures one of the Rider Scouts. Maybe this is the one monster he can’t beat…

This episode is great because the hero shows his vulnerable side, then has his courage smacked back into him by Tobei. After getting his stones back V3 squeezes a fountain of blood out of his arm to lure Deadman Bat back out for a rematch. That’s what you call dedication.

Oh yeah, and V3 fights a flying monster on its home turf and wins. That’s pretty badass too.

Episodes 45-46: “Destron’s Christmas Present” and “Riderman, Where Will You Go?”

A few episodes before this two-parter we met Yuki Joji, a Destron scientist who was sentenced to death by the final Destron commandant, Marshal Armor, who was afraid Joji was a rival for promotion. He was about to be dipped in acid and lost an arm before his buddies saved him and replaced it with a bionic one they’d been working on. Joji became the lazily-named Riderman, out to get even not so much with Destron as Marshal Armor. The Leader raised him, see, and he thought what the group was doing was ultimately good.

Destron’s new monster, Rhino Tank, disguises himself as Santa to kidnap kids to enroll in Destron’s leadership program. Whether they like it or not, of course. Rhino Tank blackmails Riderman into helping him get rid of V3 to earn the kids’ safe return.

The first awesome thing about this story was V3’s first fight with Rhino Tank. The monster’s so tough all V3’s attacks just bounce off and he eventually grabs V3 by the legs and throws him into the next county.

Then there's how this is when Riderman finally realizes Destron in general, not just Marshall Armor, is rotten. It’s pitiful watching him wrestle around with Shiro, almost crying as he tries to tune out Shiro’s assurances that Destron isn’t working toward a brighter tomorrow for all mankind. It takes V3 saving him from a deathtrap to admit to himself that maybe he was backing the wrong horse. Seeing them work together to take out the seemingly invincible Rhino Tank was immensely satisfying.

 The episode had some small downsides (the kidnapped kids running around in black leotards comes to mind), but just let that be proof of how evil these Destron guys are. At least they saved the kids in time to wish them a Happy New Year which didn’t involve being forced into leotards.

And beyond…

Eventually Riderman sacrifices himself to steer Destron’s ultimate weapon, the Pluton missile, away from Tokyo. V3 fights on alone to a final confrontation with the Destron Leader, who turns out to be a fanged skeleton, and smashes him to bony bits. Par for Ishinomori’s style, the diabolical Leader leaves this world saying that as long as evil exists in men’s hearts, he’ll be back.

And return he would, and a hero would rise up against him.

But that’s another story.


Screencaps taken from the Kamen Rider V3 series set from Generation Kikaida. If you’d like to see more of this stuff available in the US please head over there and give them some business.