[GoldenXtreme]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamSword

Kamen Rider 4 is a much better epilogue to Faiz than what Paradise Regained is.

I will die on this hill.

I still haven't seen Paradise Regained BECAUSE I was so satisfied with Kamen Rider 4 as an epilogue!

[DreamSword]

Quote:

Originally Posted by GoldenXtreme

I still haven't seen Paradise Regained BECAUSE I was so satisfied with Kamen Rider 4 as an epilogue!

Yeah! And on the topic of Drive's' mountain of side content...

Ya know it's funny, this is where Kamen Rider started to really go kinda overboard with all the specials and bonus material, and yet at the same time, Drive has probably had my favorite side-stuff so far?

Like, I'm not saying it's all perfect or anything, but every one I've seen so far(Episode 0, the Secret Missions, Full Throttle, the Ninninger crossover, SHT GP, and now KR4), I've rather enjoyed. Like, I can see why the idea for bonus content caught on if audiences at the time were liking this stuff as much as I am.

The main downside being that, if you're watching everything in chronological order like I am, well, yeah, it gets a bit overwhelming.

Still, fun stuff so far. Haven't regretted any of it yet.

[Mesnick]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamSword

Kamen Rider 4 is a much better epilogue to Faiz than what Paradise Regained is.

I will die on this hill.

I can say that after KR4 there is definitely a desire to get acquainted with Faiz. I can?t say the same about Paradise Regained.

[GuardianAngel87]

I am now slowly but surely getting through more episodes of my Kamen Rider Ryuki rewatch. The good news is that I am now down to the show's final quarter so I should be able to finish this series pretty soon.

[GuardianAngel87]

It has been a while but I am now officially back on watching Hibiki and I managed to finish watching the show's first 29 episodes as of today and this also means I am now up to Inoue's portion of the series. This is gonna suck.

[Switchblade]

Quote:

Originally Posted by GuardianAngel87

It has been a while but I am now officially back on watching Hibiki and I managed to finish watching the show?s first 29 episodes as of today and this also means I am now up to Inoue's portion of the series. This is gonna suck.

You don't have to watch it. There's no achievement trophy for sitting through the back 19.

[Sunred]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamSword

Yeah! And on the topic of Drive's' mountain of side content...

Ya know it's funny, this is where Kamen Rider started to really go kinda overboard with all the specials and bonus material, and yet at the same time, Drive has probably had my favorite side-stuff so far?

Gave us the last Heisei Rider.

[DreamSword]

I am now up through episode 32 of Drive and... I dunno.

I'm having alot of conflicting feelings right now, and the short of it is that if the show keeps on the path it's been on, I might be the one guy who prefers the first half of Drive to the latter half.

It's become clear that there wasn't exactly a set in road map in terms of, well, anything when it comes to Drive's'.

Because yes, it is rather oddly paced and not alot of aspects do the best at interconnecting. Certain characters become totally different(Brain), when they aren't just served out of character moments in service to said plot(Heart), and while the atmosphere has become less awkward, I also don't like the direction.

The biggest symbol of this, I feel, is Chase. I actually don't like the way his arc is going because it fully gets rid of one of the aspects of the first half that I really enjoyed: The ideology of Roidmudes being given second chances at better themselves is totally gone with Chase now killing Roidmudes without much of a care, and Shinnosuke and co, for all of the posturing of "finding peace" with the Roidmudes, are now no longer caring about any of them outside of Chase.

This isn't like Ex-Aid where the Juju Burger episode asked the question of "What if there was a good monster?" This is outright raising an angle; That there are good and bad Roidmudes alike, and just tossing it aside so there's a consistent bad guy to blow up. If this were the route they were headed for, it almost makes me wish that episode 20 just wasn't done at all, given how badly is stands against this.

To give the show some benefit of the doubt, there is the chance that I entered into this whole season with the wrong mindset. Afterall, one of the few things I knew about Drive beforehand was posts people had made during the airing of Zero-One, inwhich people called that season "Drive 2." That sort of builds a certain expectation about what exactly the show's' story is going to be like, and I'll say the same thing here that I did when I first heard OOO referred to as "Kuuga 2:" I don't see it. The similarities are superfluous at best.

But I don't feel like my feelings are totally unfounded either given how much Heart, Brain, and Chase in the early episodes were talking about things like Roidmudes being liberated from humans and becoming just people and so on. There was really not alot to suggest that entire conflict was anything other than a group of robots getting back at the humans who they felt wronged them first. But ever since the introduction of 001 as the new big bad, there's pretty much nothing other than the evil robot cliche, to the point that Chase now just kills them all without any sort of care in the world. Much less interesting of an angle.

I'd also argue that the biggest flaw of the first half only got worse in this stretch. Did said first half rely a bit too much on Chase delaying progress? Sure, but at the very least Chase was an interesting character. Here in the second act, we get the "Go is mind controlled plot" and it's very forcibly drawn out by Chase not telling Kiriko what's going on. Very blatantly too. It's not even like the mind control has lead to any interesting character stuff either. Now it's just Go delaying things the same way that Chase used to, and when combined with nothing compelling to back it it just made some episodes feel like they dragged. And with how 32 ended, I unfortunately don't feel like that's going to change anytime soon.

I dunno, I'm not out and out hating Drive or anything, I still feel like the show is overall decent, but man, what a downturn in terms of my own personal tastes.

[DreamSword]

Episode 38 was the final nail in the coffin when it came to me and Drive.

I'm barely exaggerating when I say that every second of that episode annoyed me to no end, and it signaled clear as day that the final third of Drive was not for me.

Look, I'm not here to crap on anyone's' parade, so I'm not gonna bother going into some hyper detailed tyraid, but just know that I felt like every character arc was extremely bungled to the point that I now doubt that the show had any sort of real road map.

And it sucks too, because on paper Drive has alot of aspects that are normally my jam when it comes to story concepts. But execution is everything, and Drive unfortunately just didn't deliver.

I think that, ultimately, what it comes down to in terms of plot is Drive's' love of twists. And the double-edged sword of that storytelling philosophy is that said twists need to REALLY jive with you in order to stick and justify alot of Drive's' aspects in hindsight. And needless to say, I was less than impressed. Had Drive played alot of its aspects more straight, I probably would've liked it better.

If anyone actually wants the more detailed version, I'll give it, but otherwise, at the end of the day I give Drive a 2/6. I liked the first third well enough, but after that things got really shakey for me and then only proceeded to decline afterward. It's the rare instance where I liked alot of the side content more than the show itself, and even then I wouldn't say any of the bonus material was super amazing(Surprise Future is overrated).

Whenever I've cooled down and am in the mood for more Rider, I'll be tackling Geats since SHOUT ended up subbing it. I hear it's the greatest Rider show ever of all time and that the only show that even comes close to beating it is Gaim, so that should be interesting.

[Switchblade]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamSword

Whenever I've cooled down and am in the mood for more Rider, I'll be tackling Geats since SHOUT ended up subbing it. I hear it's the greatest Rider show ever of all time and that the only show that even comes close to beating it is Gaim, so that should be interesting.

I didn't care for it, personally. Only modern Rider show I DNF'ed (not counting Amazons and Black Sun).