First, why do Zeal? It’s a decent leveling build (which you can find here) where you can transition from a starter to end game. Most of the basic skills are the same which means there’s not much else to learn once you hit level 70. If you’ve played Diablo 3, the build will remind you of the Roland’s Sweep build where you quickly blast everything around you. Like the Roland’s set build, this build also increases your attack (cast) speed when you employ the new Cathan’s Dauntless Faith Charm set where the two set bonus causes your Zealot (Zeal) skills to give you a Do or Die effect. This effect stacks and boost your Critical Strike Damage and Attack Speed up to 25 times.

Along with the Do or Die effect, the 3 set bonus triggers your Rally skill at maximum stacks once every 6 seconds. Because of this autocast effect, you don’t need to put Rally on your action bar but will want to place points into it because it helps with your movement speed, gives you Unhindered and triggers other Justice skills, which we will talk about in a moment. Then the 5 piece bonus increases your Zealot damage as well as stores an Afterimage effect for every 5 stacks of Do or Die that gets spawned when you move. So it’s a like a Shadow Clone that you leave behind after attacking.

The other major component to the Zeal build is a unique 2-handed sword called Red Sermon. Besides increasing your Zeal damage (which is the main reason to get this item), you also gain the Death or Glory variant for free, which means you’ll have two variants for Zeal. Death or Glory causes Zeal to do a full circle attack, uses 10% of your Maximum Life instead of Faith as a cost in exchange for increasing your Critical Hit Chance and Zeal’s damage. Besides Death of Glory, the build uses Zealot’s Legacy which attacks randomly and striking 4 additional times. Also, you pick up Additional Strikes, which gives you 2 more attacks and Weaken, which makes Zeal a fast attack.

To mitigate some of the life sacrifice from Death or Glory, you take Endurant Faith to spread the damage out, Defiance Aura to get passive healing and stand in Consecration for a little more active healing. In general, I’ve found that as long as you’re not just spam casting Zeal endlessly, the amount of life removed is negligible and can be topped off quickly. The build guide I use doesn’t do anything extra like add Life on Hit or Life on Kill but I imagine that you can effectively become quite a powerhouse in splitting some defense by using either type of mitigation.

Most of the defense here comes from Resolve stacking. The guide has you take Resolve on the amulet, helmet, chest and leg pieces and applying the Glynn’s Anvil aspect on one of the three armor pieces. Then you start building Resolve stacks early on by using Fortress. Since you can masterwork Resolve and get GA’s on it, you try to go for +12 on those pieces to get 48 points in Resolve on gear. I will have comments later on regarding Resolve stacking but it pretty much is the primary way to build defenses here.

Now, one of the cool things that happens with the way Rally works along with the 3 piece bonus from Cathan’s Dauntless Faith Charm is that it gets periodically autocast. When that happens and you choose the Words of Inspiration variant, Rally expends all available charges (which is up to 3) that causes your Justice skill cooldowns to be reduced by 3 seconds per Charge. Since we don’t have Rally on the action bar, you’re effectively able to lay down Consecration once every 2-3 seconds or so.

For mobility, you use Falling Star and employ the Igni + Ceh Runeword for using Spirit Wolves to apply Vulnerability to reduce the cooldown. The rest of your mobility comes from raw movement speed placed on your boots. But with Rally being up most of the time, you shouldn’t have many issues getting around. Also, while the guide suggest Cir + Vex for your other Runeword choice, I think it’s a bit of an overkill. Instead, I prefer Bac + Que for keeping up a Barrier for the extra defense. Movement really isn’t an issue on this build and you can get more skill points from your Charms. But having another layer of defense in sketchy moments I think is worth it for melee builds.

The biggest issue I’ve found in terms of the play style was the tiny pause when you cast Zeal. Because this ability is in melee range, certain mob on death effects like Executioner make the scenario dubious. I generally keep an Evade charge handy just to dodge quickly. Falling Star helps out with this too. That’s also why I prefer Bac + Que because I don’t want to rely on Resolve stacking or Fortress.

Another issue I had with this build (guide) was the emphasis on Critical Strike Damage, Vulnerability, Attack Speed and Physical Damage affixes/multipliers. I think because you get your Critical Hit chance from Helm of Perdition, Fanaticism Aura and Death or Glory via Red Sermon, you avoid having Critical Hit chance on your gear (except as a Temper on your weapon). But it does make these ideal stats very hard to obtain, which is really annoying and has me question the end game crafting and gearing system.

Before I dive into some overarching concerns I have with the end game systems, let me finalize a few thoughts on the Zeal Paladin build. First, it’s a decent build that does pretty good boss damage, which generally is my concern as I take a character into the end game. AoE-wise, it’s not great because of the range factor. The Afterimage effect seems cool in concept but most of the time you’re leaping/moving to the next pack of mobs so if the intent was to leave behind a clone to attack, it doesn’t feel effective. Maybe this style of play works better at higher difficulties but it doesn’t solve the problem of how you’re forced to move forward most of the time.

I did like the ideas of the combining synergies between the charm bonus, Rally, Consecration, Red Sermon and healing. The general concept is pretty cool. The Afterimage clone effect would be cool if they follow you around for a few seconds rather than be left behind. Like in the case of Whirlwind Barbarian with Tornadoes, the Tornadoes shoot outward, so stragglers can be damaged. I might have to play around with the Zeal build at higher torments to get a better feeling. Right now, my character is only at Torment 6.

That does beg the question: why am I only at Torment 6 on this character? So part of the reason I’m writing this post is to talk partly on the journey of this character not just writing on how to create a build (because someone has already done that for me). Because I have played numerous other characters in Season 13, I managed to accumulate plenty of spare gear, materials and set charms. Usually at a certain point in a season, if I’m enjoying myself, I tend to play alts especially if there’s new builds I want to try. Naturally, in Season 13, because let’s face facts and call the Lord of Hatred launch nothing more than a public PTR, the number of choices has been wide open. With the Paladin being the other newest class, I wanted to check out other builds as I only used an Auradin back in Season 11 (and leveled with a Hammerdin). Zeal was one of the top builds around and I got to see it in action which piqued my interest.

One of the advantages of having all those preexisting characters and spare gear is that it’s easy to get rolling fast. For instance, I grabbed Bac + Que and Igni + Ceh up immediately and crafted sockets on my starting gear. The difficulty mostly was in getting new Aspects to align with the build guides. Since I was pretty impatient, I used the upgrade mechanic in the cube to convert blues to rares to legendaries as well as Bartering with the Mercenaries (although I frequently run out of currency). Even with these methods, you still may not find all the key Aspects to really get the build online. So my leveling experience was more of a hybrid situation.

Also, attempting to match up the affixes on gear to the main build was a very frustrating experience (still is). Because the build guide emphasizes on almost all offensive stats, you need to get supremely lucky. Even crafting these stats in the cube isn’t a guarantee. At a certain point after burning tons of materials up, I would simply give up and find any 2-3 combos “just” enough because it was getting too expensive and painful to try and perfect the build. Even the midpoint guide used here mostly emphasized the “all damage multiplier” types, which I think is a red herring in a way. Because of having to deal with crafting, managing another Paragon board, etc., I effectively quit because I started to feel burnt out.

After giving myself a few days off, I came back and played around with this character again. One of the things you can do is that reaching Torment 1, you can convert your other set charms into your current class’ sets. Since I was aiming for Cathan’s Dauntless Faith Charm, I naturally crafted the one for the Wing Strike build and only crafted a single piece for the Zeal build. That only infuriated me into taking a few more days off to clear my head (not to mention I was upset at the upcoming Season 14/patch notes).

So finally, I decided the other day just to play normally and treat this character as an “advanced” fresh start character. Meaning, she would have some twink gear but I already had found the Red Sermon and had enough Aspects and basically gear to hit Torment 1. And to be frank, I enjoyed this part. If it weren’t for the fact that I have a kick ass Whirlwind Barbarian, I would probably enjoy playing other characters a lot more. But having a near fresh start character does give you a type of new way of progressing and it honestly doesn’t take long before you’re in at least Torment 3. The thing is that I didn’t want to push her too fast in the way some people might try going from zero to hero when you already have unlocked all the higher Pit tiers on a more powerful character. That way, I could still experience a small sense of progression on her. On top of that, getting the other set bonuses was not difficult at all.

But part of the journey was just using the existing War Plans to get through these lower torments. I could have just grinded in the Pits to push her Glyphs, etc. But you simply do not gain enough War Plan experience so you’re effectively wasting a lot of time doing any non-War Plan activity (which will be part of my upcoming criticisms to the War Plan mechanism). On a fresh character, you will want to only do War Plans so you can level them up. This does prevent you from focusing on a single activity like the Pit and you’re at the mercy of RNG for what it gives you. As a result, I would do the Pit anytime I had a chance but I still needed to do all the side activities which takes time, which left me at around Torment 6. I could easily do a higher Pit level but I like gradual progression especially because of how I didn’t obtain all the necessary glyphs.

That said, I really had wanted to play the Wing Strike build rather than Zeal. I think leveling with Zeal was a little painful and slow. At the moment, Wing Strike is considered a C grade build as per Maxroll. Also, I’ve read numerous other people describing Wing Strike being weak, awkward and not great at bosses. However, Wing Strike does offer one thing that other builds (except pure Auradin) do not: a walking simulator build.

Given this experience, the whole ordeal gave me the epiphany of how poorly structured Diablo 4 is at the moment. First, crafting is definitely in a better state if not the best state as far as any previous version of Diablo has been. But the cost and sheer RNG aspect make the situation truly a nightmare along with the horrible UI. While I do think the crafting materials are a massive step up from what they had before, the interaction with this whole system is nearly insufferable from the fact that you cannot easily pick up the materials off the ground, the tiny amounts provided, the very manual mechanisms to craft anything desirable and the depressing feeling of being letdown when you cannot get what you want. Some mentally disturbed individuals actually enjoy this system but I think those people are masochist and want carpal tunnel because that is what you will receive as your true “reward” from enduring this torturous experience.

But I think the frustrating wasn’t just this terrible flow for me. I think where the game just dies and leads to burn out is when I find myself doing this highly manual, one-by-one, type of workflow where I get nowhere. When you combine how build guides are made with the “idealistic” gear in mind and try to pair it with someone who does not want to spend their entire life inside a single game, it’s a really bad combination. I want to play the actual game and find some meaningful progression towards a goal. The RNG factor absolutely kills 90% of my desire to play this game any longer than a month when there’s a reasonable season at hand. I’m not talking about just grinding to find items, but grinding, finding the items/currency, then starting from scratch because the game has a shitty “The Price is Right” failure honk going off on you because there’s a built in gambling mechanism. It’s just not fun and more than frustrating.

Where the idealistic build guides portion start to damage the game for me is when the game allows for an insane level of multipliers and damage types on gear. For instance, in the Zeal Paladin’s case, you grab on Gloves, Rings and Amulets Critical Strike Damage, Vulnerable Damage, Physical Damage and Attack Speed. While it is good that you can obtain all these forms of damage modifiers, getting the quad-fecta version is close to impossible without spending hours maybe even days on a project. You’re effectively doing Focused Rerolls or Adding/Removing carefully, one by one. The workflow of the Cube itself is just so horrendous that you’re better off blowing your brains out with a bazooka than suffering this mind numbing, fecal waste of time. Hence, why I just started giving up once I hit 2-3 key modifiers. We’re not even talking about Greater Affixes either nor adding the perfect Temper and Masterworking, which still are all RNG based to a degree. THIS IS NOT FUN.

For me and I think a lot of ARPG players, the real fun is when you see meaningful progress and that you’re gradually getting improvements while the game opens up as well as seeing the updates which alter how you play the game. The way Diablo 4 is currently designed, you have so many impediments where the start of a new season is fine but once you get into the end game or when you start playing alts, this feeling of sameness of self-awareness of being on in a trapped hamster wheel creeps up quickly. This same feeling is the same reason I quit World of Warcraft a while back because I knew that game was horribly poisonous to my mental state. With RNG being the gatekeeper in Diablo 4, I feel like all the joy of the game gets quickly sucked out, which is why the game only last for most people a few days after the start of a season.

Another thing that I realized in playing the Zeal Paladin build is that the game is terrible for anything except walking simulators. At this point, the game requires every build to be fast, do area damage, have great single target, need high defense and a get out of jail card (outside of Evade). It’s absolutely ridiculous to have these types of requirements because it imposes a very strict type of style in place. The end result of these requirements is that the only builds worth doing are those that can either clear the entire screen at once or doing enough damage in a radius quickly while not stopping. All the builds that I’ve played that were enjoyable were speedy, did not pause for casting, had some sort of gimmicked defense and possessed a reasonable area clear. This is an absolutely stupid design.

There are two major problems in the current design of the game, which funnels players towards these types of builds. First, bosses have massive, unforgiving AoE zones and generally poor mechanics that become annoying once they phase. So you need to effectively kill the boss before they can phase. If damage reduction were actually meaningful in this game, the damage wouldn’t be so bad. You should be able to take multiple hits even at higher difficulties if you have enough Toughness. So Toughness is virtually a nonsensical, meaningless stat. The second major problem at this stage is the recent addition of on death effects. I would argue that on death effects would not be an issue IF YOU COULD SEE THEM. The game’s art design effectively make these on death effects almost unfair because they aren’t highlighted well, they conflict with the player’s abilities and the damage becomes so high that there’s almost nothing you can do. It’s one thing if the Executioner’s falling sword pushes you into a swirling poison pool that takes a portion of your health away. It’s another when you can’t even see either and just die out of nowhere.

The other massive problem is the speed in which the game has moved towards. People describe Diablo 4 as more of an arcade style game (they even have those anymore outside of Japan????). So the expectation is that everything just moves fast. When they talked about increasing the AI for monsters in higher torments a while back, we never really saw that aspect in play. I think most people were expecting better reactions from monsters, which only seem meaningful in lower level content where a player is undergeared. In higher difficulties, the only real visual thing is seeing monsters assault players must faster and shoot out a ton of damaging effects. None of these elements cause me to believe that the monsters’ AI has improved; instead, it’s just AI slop in a very literal sense. But the result of this is to force players to have increased speed in a variety of ways. It’s basically kill or be killed.

But the core overarching issue is the internal edict that the developers are here to kill the players. This was actually a highlight in a previous developer campfire. “You will die” they mentioned during Season 9, I believe when all the monsters received a massive revamp. Now, this situation would be fine IF there was compensation for the way the various systems have evolved. If Toughness was actually meaningful/useful as a clear stat to indicate how much damage you can mitigate at once, then the current systems would actually work. You wouldn’t have to use some sort of janky, gimmick like Resolve stacking or Immortal Barbarian with Selig’s to deal with a lot of the one shot stupidity.

Along with this internal edict as I’m labeling it, the various multipliers that players are allowed and almost expected to use are out of control in conjunction with the Torment and monster damage scaling problems. Many people have stated that multipliers are what is making the game ridiculous. The problem is that they aren’t really meaningful stats at the end of the day. You can’t deduce how much you ought to be doing because of the wishfully complex math involved. It would be different if say +1 skills simply meant +1 to damage or something on a reasonable level. I think part of the problem is that multipliers are the mentally ill fated mechanism that got World of Warcraft into a bad state to begin with in creating higher tier gear and making lower levels invalid when an expansion began. So this issue ended up somehow getting inherited to the Diablo franchise.

I don’t think the game as-is can easily change the multiplier situation without yet another round of monstrous refactorings from the ground up. But it is a major issue that I think has made these various builds problematic because of how it’s impossible to reliably calculate damage and defense. And to be clear, I think the only real multiplier should be on Critical Hit and nothing else and I would reserve that type of damage to a few select scenarios.

Given these situations and the upcoming Season 14, I’m not certain if I want to play at this point. I’m a bit disappointed in the state of things. I think the changes to Mythics coming up and the various balance changes don’t solve the core problems of the game. The actual builds themselves won’t change much, which leaves just the season mechanic as the only reason to play. But I might just be burnt out by the game at this stage. I think if the grind was more progressive than regressive from its RNG dependency, I would be more compelled to try more things out. But the game is still a far cry from what I would consider a true A tier level title.

The post Diablo 4 Lord of Hatred: Season 13 Zeal Paladin Build Review and Game Thoughts appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

We are introduced to the two main villains in the movie of General Xu, played by the perpetually notorious Wang Lung-Wei, and his second in command Captain Hua Shun, played by Suen Shu-Pei. They are to greet three new instructors from North Shaolin, Pao Siao Tung/Bao Shanxiong played by Lu Feng who uses the Iron Palm, Hsu Fong/Xu Fang played by Sun Chien doing the whirlwind kick and Chun Fei/Yang Zhongfei played by Chiang Sheng who uses a combination of the light skill (acrobatics) and a specialized polearm called the butterfly pole (which is a staff with a secondary, smaller staff piece attached with a chain on one end). Before meeting with them, General Xu discusses with his assistant the current Shaolin instructors from the southern school. There’s a court order preventing the spreading of martial arts from Shaolin except when it’s taught by monks or to the army. So the southern school is forced to send their people to help train the Manchu army. However, these people are brash and implied to not be very good. Hence, why the general sends for a new batch from North Shaolin.

These new instructors are pleasant and considered top of their class. The general asks for a demonstration where he’s prepared a test of three wooden dummies. Each instructor take turns briefly giving a sample of their abilities. By the end, General Xu is appeased and has them greet the southern instructors. As hinted, these other instructors are brash and ridicule the Northern instructors. However, to fix their rankings, the general insist on a friendly contest to see which side is best.

Yang starts off by flipping around and avoid his opponent. Eventually, his opponent grows hot, grabs a pair of swords and attacks Yang more ferociously. Thereafter, Yang grabs his pole and disarms his foe, giving him a small bash to end the contest. Then another instructor (Dick Wei) goes next and before he can attack Yang, Pao intercedes with his Iron Palm technique (which actually looks more like an annoying hand in shoved in your face).

He delivers a blow that knocks his opponent into some chairs while a third guy enters to fight Hsu. At this point, it’s clear to General Xu that the southern Shaolin instructors are no match and that the teacher had intentionally sent low grade people as a kind of passive aggressive protest to the Manchu authority. But like the other two, Hsu kicks his opponent down, attempts to help the guy then gets shoved for being polite.

Regardless, the Southern instructors are humiliated and the Northern instructors take their place. The three Southern teachers return to their rooms and pack them belongings. Soon General Xu and Captain Hua enter to inquire what their plans are. One admits that their kung fu was not sufficient and intends to return to their school to send more qualified people. General Xu then gives two of them a death blow that instantly kills them off. The third tries to retaliate but also receives a sharp blow to his ribs. As he’s dying, General Xu reveals his real intentions in ensuring that the school will send back teachers but with the mission to seek revenge.

Afterwards, Captain Hua arranges the dead teachers’ corpses to be returned to the south Shaolin school run by the sickly Master Mai Qi, played by Chan Shen. Teacher Mai has two sons, one of who is Mai Feng, played by Wai Pak of Snake Venom fame. Captain Hua lies about the three teachers’ fates, saying that the Northern instructors became vicious and caused fatal blows that left the three dead by morning. This instills hostility into the emotional southern Shaolin students. While Teacher Mai realizes that the Shaolin schools are effectively a single family, he recognizes that his students must be avenged and decides to send one of his sons and two more students to respond to the Northern teachers.

Back at the general’s quarters, the Northern teachers are provided with the former teachers’ residence. They have a small discussion about the mysterious deaths of the other three teachers where Captain Hua makes a bizarre comment about fate. After he leaves, the three instructors discuss their actual suspicion of what might be happening as well as revealing how they are only performing this service to protect their schools but do not actually want the positions. Nonetheless, they realize that they need to show deference to the dead and plan to visit Teacher Mai’s school. As Yang is about to make inquiries, he bumps into Su Yen/Xiu Yin, played by a young Kara Hui as a servant.

The following day, the three instructors visit Teacher Mai’s school where both sides are wearing blue. However, the other students are posed defensively while Teacher Mai speaks on the school’s behalf. Hsu tries to present their side as being friendly but the southern side are already hostile, even though Hsu makes an argument that he suspects a plot. Teacher Mai refuses to listen as tempers on their side rise. Before Hsu can further defend their side, Pao eagerly agrees for the duel.

Later, the three Northern teachers have another contest with the new batch of southern pupils. They mean to keep it friendly where Pao starts off in having one of the southern guys try to match palms with him. After ten strikes and retreated, that person would lose. Some jabronie decides he’s a bad ass and Pao laughs the guy off. The jabronie tries for a shitty quick strike and is pushed back. His comrades quickly realize that their friend is no match for Pao but the guy refuses to back away. Effectively, the two play a lethal game of pat-a-cake until Pao has the guy in a kind of weird palm facing grip.

While attempting to maintain his concentration, apparently this guy pisses in his pants on the floor.

Eventually, Pao has enough of this joker and gives him the good old Xing Kang Pam fatal blow, which ruptures his ribs apparently.

Captain Hua inspects the guy and says the obvious, “Ribs are smashed. He’s dead!” For which all hell breaks out as the other two South Shaolin students decide to go on the assault. But let me pause here and just say this death scene originally fucked me up. I was scared to watch this movie because it was bloody and gross back when I was a kid. Now, when I watch it, I find it hilarious. The guy challenging Pao is just such a gimp. He bleeds from the mouth for no good reason BEFORE getting his ribs smashed and he pisses in his pants on the floor and takes a shit (well, actually it’s sweat but when I first saw it, I thought he peed because he sucked so much dick in this lame ass “fight”). But it made Pao look like a monster heel even though Lu Feng really isn’t that big of a guy especially when you compare his physique to Lo Meng’s later on. But this death scene does establish just how powerful Pao’s kung fu is supposed to be as well as how he exhibits little self control, despite Hsu’s warning earlier. For my last comment on this, the so-called smashed ribs looked like cheap chicken bones that were glued onto the guy’s stomach. Until this all became digitized, I didn’t realize how the guy’s “rib cage” was supposedly sticking out. But now, with proper pausing and improved visuals, you can see just how cheesy it looks. I mean, it’s not like that gaping hole in Kane’s chest after the chestburster erupted in Alien.

Anyway, Hsu beats back Mai’s son and stops his round. However, seeing the opportunity for a cheap victory, Mai’s son tries to backstab Hsu and Hsu reacts with a kick that cracks Mai’s son’s head open and kills him. Yang’s opponent loses his cool and grabs a weight to to fight Yang. However, Yang uses his butterfly pole’s chain extension to smash the guy’s elbow in. He apologizes to the guy but his opponent is humiliated by the loss and leaves. General Xu declares the Northern group to be far superior to add salt into the survivor’s emotional wounds.

Back at teacher Mai’s school, the students inspect the latest dead bodies where Mai identifies how they each died. The survivor mentions his own defeat as well as the technique Yang uses. From there, Mai shuts down the school and orders all the students to leave and not seek revenge. At night, the surviving student goes before the shrine and leaves a letter, committing suicide with a knife. The letter basically explains how he is ashamed of being defeated. Mai and his other son discover the dead body. In turn, they decide to take revenge but need to train better. Mai sends his son off to another teacher called the Gardener to learn Wing Chun and has two of the other senior classmates to return to have them train.

At the training grounds, the Northern instructors perform their duties as General Xu and Captain Hua come around for an inspection. After their shift is over, they return to their quarters where Su Yen is waiting and brings them hot tea. She goes to flirt with Hsu in fanning him but Pao decides he wants some as well. Instead, she hands Pao a spare fan and Yang points out that Su only has eyes for Hsu as it’s clear they’re falling in love. In turn, they decide to take a walk around the city.

When Pao and Yang go to the city, they witness a pair of Qing troops taking fruit from a pair of peddlers. Pao and Yang think the situation is suspicious but Yang decides to grab a fresh pear without paying. One of the peddlers remonstrates and they enter into a philosophical discussion where the two peddlers condemn Pao and Yang as being bad because of their association with the Qings by being their teachers, despite any intention of being generous. In turn, Yang has Pao discuss their real disposition with the two females as he takes over duties. However, one of the women keeps him company.

In the meantime, General Xu and Captain Hua gloat over the success of the plan. Back by the stalls, a new character shows up as Ho Yen Wu/He Yingwu played by Philip Kwok makes his clumsy entrance. Yang and Ho have a friendly fight when Yang tries to force one of the pears in Ho’s face. Ho grabs a pear and bites into it (which honestly looks good each time) and they continue fighting until he decides to walk away, nearly forgetting his bundle. But Yang reminds Ho and Ho pays for the fruit and gets his bag back. But Ho does suspect that Yang isn’t an actual fruit peddler.

Ho goes to teacher Mai’s school where his mood becomes somber in seeing the coffins of his dead classmates. Teacher Mai shows up and enforces that Ho must only focus on revenge. In the meantime, Mai’s song, Fong, arrives at the Gardener’s abode. As per his nickname, the Gardener busies himself amongst his flowers. Fong is forced to give the Gardener a letter to ensure that he’ll teach him. The Gardener rips away the letter smoothly and pushes Fong backward, making Fong realize that this guy is the real deal Wing Chun master. However, the Gardener does call out Fong’s father as being lazy, which I think is humorous because it says a lot more about teacher Mai’s actual subversive character in this movie. But he ends up accepting Fong as his student, even though the task is daunting. However, Fong’s only intention is revenge so he cannot fail.

At the fruit peddlers’ stalls, a pair of soldiers try to harass the two women. Then Ho Ming Pao/Zhangcheng played by Lo Meng appears to defend the two ladies’ honor. He thwarts the soldiers and chases them off as Yang and Pao show up. When Ho Ming tries to chase after the soldiers, Pao stops him. Yang explains that Pao is trying to save Ho Ming’s life because more troops will be coming as well as the fact that the two women are the girlfriends of Yang and Pao. Both Ho Ming and Pao separate with great admiration for one another where Pao realizes that the mysterious fighter didn’t ask for his name, in which case his girlfriend retorts, “Well, neither did you.”

Once again at teacher Mai’s school, Ho Ming meets up with Ho and Mai. Mai forces Ho Ming to view the shrine to reinforce the idea of revenge before having him seek out the mantis instructor. Ho Ming leaves and meets with Master Zhu Ming, who will teach Ho Ming the mantis fist. The teacher asks Ho Ming to strip down when we next see Ho Ming he ties his belt with the knot to the right side, which I believe indicates that he’s not yet a master (basically a disciple) whereas before he comes in with some cockiness. Master Zhu gives the origin story of the mantis then has Ho Ming start training his arms and finger strength by having him do specialized push ups over an open well. He placies two eggs under Ho Ming’s hands. Quickly, Ho Ming loses power and crashes down on the eggs. Then for dinner, Master Zhu serves the broken eggs as fried eggs along with rice. Ho Ming tells Master Zhu that he likes eggs and Master Zhu tells him, “That’s good.” Hence, anytime Ho Ming breaks eggs he’ll have them for dinner to avoid waste.

Over at the Gardener’s place, the Gardener explains the origins of the Wing Chun style and explains how it’s meant to suit a woman and requires suppleness and balance from the learner. Thereafter, he asks for a demonstration of Fong for his stance. Fong hops onto a pole and practices for a few moments before losing his balance and falling into some flowers. The Gardener then tells Fong that the penalty for falling into his plants is to have Fong fix all the damage he does.

Next, it’s Ho’s turn as he trains with a pole/staff using rings to improve his accuracy.

Each of the students from here on out go through their own trials and tribulations as their exercises grow in intensity and difficulty. Fong’s poles get higher to force him to improve his balance, Ho Ming must wear a heavy stone on his back while using less fingers for his push ups and Ho must learn to react to a counter attack by his opponent’s butterfly pole by parrying poles thrown back at him.

Regardless, they manage to gradually overcome their challenges. My favorite is Ho Ming’s victory when he only breaks a single egg and is allowed to have normal food. I swear the beef and chicken he chows on make me hungry!

Of course, this is only the beginning as more exercises that are equally if not more intense and painful are presented, each having different purposes to counter their foes’ key attacks. On the other hand, the General and Captain question why things are quiet. General Xu realizes that Mai won’t give up easily and continues to have Captain Hua. monitor the Northern teachers. The Northern teachers meet up where Hsu mentions how he discovers the way in which the original three had perished via deadly stomach/chest blows. He narrows down the candidates to General Xu and Captain Hua. Before he gets too serious, the other two take him to meet their girlfriends.

From there, Ho makes progress with his technique and takes a break. He encounters the teachers with their girlfriends at the restaurant next to their stalls. He overhears them talk about the teachers’ positions and realizes that the three are the North Shaolin instructors. He challenges Yang to a fight and rips off a pair of stools’ legs to use as weapons in having an equal contest. Hsu attempts to talk over the situation but Yang ends up agreeing to the duel. The two fight into the street where Yang’s light skill becomes the difference maker. Hsu makes one last attempt to talk but Ho, like the other south Shaolin men, is too upset and proud.

When the disgruntled Ho returns to Mai’s school, Mai notices his shameful disposition and correctly assumes that he got into a fight. Ho describes how he lost with Yang’s light skill being the key so Mai decides to start training Ho on that aspect. However, Mai does conveniently ignore the fact that Ho also concedes that Yang spares him because Mai is obsessed on revenge. Meanwhile the other pupils continue to advance in their training where Ho Ming work with weights and Fong is placed in smaller and smaller wooden rooms that he must fight his way out of. Ho combines his training with deflecting sticks with using weights on his legs to build his jumping technique and leg strength up.

The students’ make steady progress despite all their challenges. I think Fong’s situation is the most interesting in terms of the reward structure where he gets a meal each time he succeeds in conquering a level. At the same time, while he’s eating, you can see the sheer damage he’s doing on his knuckles and hands as they’re heavily bruised from striking the wooden walls all day.

Ho finishes his training first but discovers Mai on his bed bleeding. He already had been sick and stopped participating in training Ho.

At the Manchu HQ, Yang and Pao bring their fiances to meet both Hsu and Su Yen. As their romances blossom, all six discuss the next steps to growing their relationship.

Initially, Su Yen isn’t around so Yang locates her in Hsu’s room and accuses her of hiding.

Su Yen feels left out but the girls and Yang tease her about getting married to Hsu. However, Captain Hua is hiding around the corner and Hsu rushes out to grab him. Captain Hua though forgives the matter and tells the group that General Xu will be pleased in learning about Hsu’s upcoming marriage. Su Yen though is embarrassed by the attention and runs from the room, which causes everyone to burst into laughter. However, Yang and Hsu look at each other with Hsu shaking his head to reveal that Captain Hua isn’t the one who was responsible for the death blows.

Captain Hua sneaks back to General Xu to share the news. Initially, General Xu is unnerved by Hsu’s boldness in having an affair with the maid Su Yen (which apparently General Xu had sent which may imply she was spying on him). However, the sly Captain Hua shows his cunning because he mentions how Hsu’s marriage to the maid will allow General Xu to control the norther Shaolin instructors to further cause problems for the others. Finally, General Xu accepts the plan and takes it a step further by deciding to adopt the maid as his god daughter and approves of the wedding.

At this point, the south Shaolin pupils begin finishing their training with Fong completing his next inside a tiny wooden room.

As Fong goes through his round, Ho Ming probably has the most brutal physical training scene in the movie where he’s restrained partly by rubber bands (I think they call it Ox Bands) where he picks up stone weights and hurls them to demolish a tree.

On the other hand, Ho stays with Mai and cares for him. Then at the Manchu HQ, the three Northern teachers ponder over the marriage situation. Yang and Pao learn that General Xu is happy with the prospects and will adopt Su Yen as his god-daughter, encouraging Hsu to go along with the plan since they can continue to spy on General Xu. Also, they narrow down the remaining candidate for the murders to General Xu but have no ample proof at this stage. Nonetheless, Hsu is skeptical as it puts Su Yen in danger. Ultimately, the group are on a grander mission of restoring the Ming Dynasty to the throne and overthrowing the Qings so any sacrifice even personal is considered acceptable here.

Once the other two complete their training, they return to Mai’s school and meetup with Ho. By this point, Mai has become extremely ill and requires aid from the others. Despite his condition, he wishes for them to take him to the shrine of their classmates and has them swear an oath of vengeance. The students exchange concerned glances before taking the oath. Afterwards, Mai falls over dead.

From there, Captain Hua reports back to General Xu about teacher Mai’s demise. Captain Hua plans to attend the funeral to further stir up problems with the southern students to get them to move quickly by telling them about the wedding and General Xu’s adoption of Su Yen. In turn, General Xu says he’ll set up an ambush on whomever the win is. Captain Hua visits the school where the funeral is held. Despite Captain Hua’s politeness, he does make it clear in emphasizing the upcoming wedding. Fong and Ho Ming call into question the northern instructors’ possible defection to the Qing but Ho thinks something else is going on. Yet because of the blood oath they swore, Ho maintains that he will carry out teacher Mai’s last wish for revenge.

The next day General Xu hosts a private party for Hsu and Su Yen’s wedding. Su Yen looks incredible here I must say.

The group exchange toasts to one another. When it’s Hsu’s turn to propose a toast to the General, General Xu refuses to be called General, which makes Hsu show some concern for the odd change in tone (maybe a bad translation here?) However, the south Shaolin students arrive to interrupt the party. Captain Hua stands back with a smirk in admiring that his assumptions were right in drawing out the south Shaolin pupils. As the two groups confront each other, Ho Ming realizes that Pao is the guy he met by the fruit vendor stall. However, Fong is steadfast about taking revenge whereas Hsu tries one last time to placate the south Shaolin men in suggesting that there’s a plot. This time Ho agrees in his own suspicions but says because of the oath he took, he must respect his teacher’s wishes for revenge but thinks that after fighting the truth may come out.

In turn, Pao formally greets Ho Ming and exchanges names and introduces himself and his technique over some wine. When Pao learns of Ho Ming’s background as a mantis practitioner, his respect increases although they both know that they must fight to the death.

The other four likewise formally exchange names and prepare for their fights. The three women try to protest while General Xu dismisses their concerns calling the affair “men’s business.” Ho wants to have a serious fight with Yang as Captain Hua sneaks off after consulting with the General. Yang eyes Captain Hua suspiciously and agrees to Ho’s terms, but it’s clear that he has other plans because of how his side already is weary of the General and Hua.

From here on out, it’s war between both sides where we get Chang Cheh and the Venoms at their best. Multiple scenes of the sepia flashback training sequences are used here where we see how the south Shaolin students counter their northern counterparts with their learning. While that occurs, the General sits back quietly observing as the three women helplessly watch. Also, Captain Hua gathers the Qing troops waiting to pounce.

Hsu is the first to make a mistake, kicking in a wall and trapping himself which leaves him open to Fong’s close range Wing Chun attack. As Hsu separate, he smiles at Fong telling him that his brother is avenged but wants him to hear the entire story of how his brother had died. Once Fong hears what happened, Fong calms down and realizes that perhaps Mai and he went overzealous in their desire for revenge. Nonetheless, Hsu though dying wants to try and stop the others from killing each other.

The pace picks up as Hsu stumbles out to warn the others but can’t get the words out. Pao sees his mortally wounded friend and pushes Ho Ming away. Ho Ming flings a potted plant to temporarily blind Pao as Ho Ming goes in for the kill. Pao has the opportunity to smack Ho Ming but recalls earlier about Ho Ming talking about being the heir (his name is “Ming” implying how he’s connected to the Ming Dynasty) So Pao hesitates whereas Ho Ming does not and splits Pao chest open with his finger strength.

Finally, Yang and Ho finalize their fight where Yang jumps on the roof but refuses to assault Ho. However, in spotting Yang, Ho delivers a spear-like shot to Yang’s stomach with the end of his pole and Yang snaps Ho’s pole off but leaves the end sticking from his belly.

Despite wounding Yang, Ho is surprised at Yang’s reaction where he insist that they needed to fight seriously and wonders why Yang refused to attack him while he had the chance. Yang tells Ho that they aren’t foes so there was no need to fight. That makes Ho finally realize the mistake of it all since the northern teachers were not murderous people and that the revenge plot was distorted. In turn, General Xu makes his move and delivers a crippling blow to Ho. Yang stands over the wounded Ho as Hsu confirms that it was General Xu’s death blow that killed the first three south Shaolin men. Armed with the truth, Ho Ming and Fong attack General Xu just as the Qing troops close in on the Shaolin men.

Because he’s badly wounded, Ho tells Fong and Ho Ming to escape and warn everyone about the Manchu plot.

The fight between Ho and General Xu is actually pretty amusing because each time the General uses his hands, it makes a “bing bing!” type of sound.

Hsu ends up killing Captain Hua with a series of kicks to his chest, grabbing Captain Hua’s sword with his bare hands and bleeding.

But before he can do more, two soldiers paint a nice red X on his chest before Sun Chien can do one of his rigor mortis shots with a quick turn of the head death.

In the meantime, Pao fights off the legions of Qings who attack him with spears. He grabs a load of the spear ends and tries to break them off with his strength. However, the effort causes his split chest to spray blood in one of the most gory scenes in the movie. Nonetheless, his final effort he stands protectively in front of the gateway to the main HQ chamber.

With his two friends dead, Yang warns Fong and Ho Ming off. As the troops move Pao’s body, everyone inside can see his gruesome fate. Fong and Ho Ming leap to the roof as rooftop archers try to shoot at them. Yang flies to parry the first batch of incoming arrows but gets struck by a second rain.

That leaves General Xu to try and prevent the escaping pair. As he leaps up, so does Ho and General Xu splits Ho’s pole with Ho striking at General Xu at the same time in a double death blow. One major comment here is that you can see Wang Lung-Wei squirting out a packet of blood from his hand. Ho does the same but his position makes it harder to see. But it does look really cheesy.

With General Xu dead, the army is pacified and both Yang and Ho reach out for one another, having poles sticking from their stomachs. Yang’s fiance runs up to him and cries as Ho characterizes Yang’s fighting as funny but claiming that he’s a hero regardless. However, Yang sees the situation from a more practical and less idealistic eye as he dies and states how it’s not much (pointing to his weeping would-be widow).

With Ho dead as well, the other two women run after their fallen men and cry while the soldiers surround the scene. Then the final scene is with the two surviving Fong and Ho Ming running with their white shirts on as the ending credits show.

So this was one of the more intense Chang Cheh movies as the 80s started to approach. The Venoms’ flicks usually were the more bloody of the Chang Cheh error in terms of how much outrageous gore could be shown. In this movie, we got to see rib cages burst out, heads getting knocked in, bloodied arms, chest split in half, hands bleeding from death gripping swords, explosions of blood. But the violence matches the theme of revenge here, which is a key element in the movie.

The plot mostly is quite simple in that the two schools go to war after being deceived. The bulk of the movie is the southern side training up while the northern side continues to unravel the mystery of the Qing plot. Intermixed is the romance piece which is used to exploit the northern teachers’ dispositions as possible traitors to Shaolin and the Ming cause.

But if we examine the revenge theme here much closer, I believe there’s a secondary issue occurring. While it’s clear that General Xu and Captain Hua are straightforward villains, the other misguided soul is teacher Mai. His position in the movie isn’t as clear cut but he becomes so obsessed over revenge that he dismisses any attempt at diplomacy and remediation with the Northern teachers. In fact, you can see how he plants the idea of revenge in his students and his actions are very one sided. When Ho realizes that Yang refuses to kill Ho during their second encounter, teacher Mai does not acknowledge that perhaps the Northern students are innocent.

And though teacher Mai starts off somewhat sickly, the incidents with his students’ demise I think are what causes him to become deathly ill. His falling health is not only physical but mental because of his obsession over revenge. We can see this when he tells Ho Ming and Ho to only think about revenge, which reveals his emotional and psychological state. In addition, I think he’s a bad teacher in general not just in technique but in attitude. His students are hot headed and don’t listen to reason, which to me is a reflection of himself. I think he sees his students’ death not only as a dishonor to Shaolin but mostly to himself, which makes the situation very personal to him (beyond the death of his other son)

Along those lines we need to examine the idea of destiny/fate here which comes up a few times. Initially, Pao is the one who is dismissive of fate at the beginning but once the vengeful school shows up at the end, he calls it destiny. It’s a strange change in disposition because the northern instructors generally are more rational (except Pao who is described by Captain Hua as being “tough but dumb”). I think part of this notion of fate is how there had been this long standing hatred towards the Qing/Manchus/Mongolians by the patriots. That makes revenge inevitable to a degree.

Next, let’s address the usage of women in the movie. While Pao’s girlfriend Chen Cui Ying played by Niu Niu is flippant, mostly the women are used as these willowy creatures who have no place in the fighting. In a way, General Xu’s views of the fighting “this is men’s business” to me is an implicit mindset of Chang Cheh himself. In particular, Kara Hui would later break out as one of the top female martial arts movie stars ever but she only received that chance through roles such as My Young Auntie where Lau Kar-Leung would give her a massive break. Here, she’s depicted as nothing more than a flirtatious, weeping, willowy creature who does nothing except serve as a possible distraction in the end fight and as a token person being used for the general’s plot. But I do think movies like this merely enforce my view that Chang Cheh was a misogynist.

But the best parts of this movie really were the training sequences. I do think that some of the training was more fictitious and outrageous because of how exaggerated certain aspects were. But this movie really, for me, made Lo Meng a super star because it’s really his training sequences, which were the most realistic and/or intense in the way they were done. If you look closely at some scenes, you can see small cuts or rashes on his skin, implying possibly that he experienced some issues on set. The parts where he does finger push ups and the ox band stretches were the most intense parts.

That does lead to the actual kung fu itself. As far as I know, only Lo Meng and Sun Chien were legitimate martial artists. Lo Meng is known for his mantis style so this movie really was a showcase for what he could do. I think in Lu Feng’s case, it’s hard to say if he was exhibiting a real style. I have read that Iron Palm is done by hardening up/building callous on ones hand using things like iron filings. Marco Polo has Fu Sheng practice with special beans that cause him to wear a stone wheel done to build up his callous. And Wai Pak’s usage of Wing Chun, while philosophically sounding correct, I cannot say for certain if it’s something he actually knew. But like Shaolin Martial Arts where Chi Kuan-Chun practices Wing Chun, the key piece was seeing Wai Pak’s bruised hands to demonstrate the punishment one must endure to build up the hand strength to pierce opponents.

Then let’s talk about food since this probably is my favorite topic for this movie. I think the Venoms’ movies more than others in the Shaw Brothers would showcase food as a key element. Lo Meng’s egg eating parts probably are some of the more famous ones where he effectively does his version of the Rocky drinking raw protein in those moment. But you can see Wai Pak also having some meals in between training sequences which to me show this training – reward structure. However, the food parts are very personal to me because my father and I would watch movies like these and try to emulate them in the kitchen. Even to this day, I still make scrambled (fried?) eggs with white rice and either spam and Vienna sausage because of nostalgic moments for my dad.

Pacing-wise, I think it’s uneven. It’s not as smooth as The Five Deadly Venoms, which probably was the best movie these six produced. I think the training scenes, while visually fun, end up becoming overbearing at a certain point because they don’t really move the movie forward that much. When you compare these training scenes to Lau Kar-Leung’s handling of training, the ones shown here seem less accessible and more fantastic. Also, they don’t exactly make you want to practice kung fu because of how ridiculous the efforts are like standing on a super high pole with one leg or having some sort of wooden machine smashing into your chest. I think Lau Kar-Leung has accused Chang Cheh of not knowing how to shoot kung fu scenes and there’s moments where you can see the philosophical differences.

Also, whenever we change to the northern instructors’ plot, the movie slows down immensely because all they do is talk or are with the women, who seem useless sadly. The more exciting parts are the training and fighting scenes. When we do get them, the pace picks up immensely. But there’s a lot of downtime.

Finally, let’s talk about Kara Hui here. I think this might’ve been her first real major role where she receives a significant boost as a character. But she’s exceptionally cute here. I have to admit if I met Su Yen after Hsu’s death, I would’ve tried proposing to her and teleporting her back to my time (or maybe 1986) and having her live with me because she seems like a treasure to have around.

At any rate, this is a Venoms classic for certain. I know anyone from the early 80s who were fans of Black Belt Theater probably would remember this one especially because it had a ton of hardcore training sequences. You cannot forget the various stylistic devices Chang Chen used back then like his trademarked sepia training flashbacks, the zoom in/out camera shots, the upclose death knell expressions, slow motion work and heroic sacrifices. It’s definitely got manly energy here and may even invite some people to want to learn kung fu. Me? I’d prefer to eat eggs and rice.

The post Shaw Brothers Invincible Shaolin (1978) Review appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

The Boxer Rebellion is a period piece done on the actual event of the Boxers in China where a group of fighters called the Boxers were part of a secret society known as the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists. These people were anti-Christian, anti-foreign and ant-imperialist. The movie itself uses the main viewpoint of the rebellion through several martial artists who become involved in this group. The main three are played by Fu Sheng (Tsang Hin Hon), Chi Kuan-Chun (Shuai Fang Yun) and Leung Kar-Yan/Beardie (Chen Chang). It’s worth noting here that this may have been Leung Kar-Yan’s only appearance as a heroic figure in a Shaw Brothers production because mostly he was cast as a villain. These three men are effectively blood brothers looking to uphold the honor of their country and join up with the Boxers in hearing about the Boxers’ intent on purging China of the foreign invasion.

Now, there is a split between the Chinese version and the non-Chinese (English dubbed) ones. The Chinese version adds more to the plot in giving a great deal of weight to the main shadow figure of Empress Dowager played by Li Li-Hua. The Chinese version starts out with Dowager watching an opera performed in her thrown room and she’s portrayed as this regal but ignorant figure, surrounded by sycophants who feed her bad information. Despite their fawning and desire for her favor, these sycophants do try to get her to move in a certain direction but do hide important information, which suggests that her decision making had been influenced by layers of politics.

On the other hand, the non-Chinese version starts with Tsang practicing kung fu and generally doesn’t go into as much detail on the political side as it focuses more on the action. Given how the Chinese version is meant to be more symbolic and starts off slower, it’s not a surprise how a second cut was made for the non-Chinese based audiences. Instead, the focus becomes more on the three main characters and their strife. Tsang is a typical Fu Sheng character, likeable, hot headed, youthful and ready to get into trouble. Shuai is the most level headed of the three, well read and cautious. Chen is the most fervent in his gung ho patriotic attitude as well as a hot head but he does have a good heart.

Both Chen and Shuai briefly converse about the feats of the Boxers, including a particular individual named Chang Chun Jiang played by Bruce Tong, who is a famous pugilist/practitioner of the iron bell technique, which is effectively a method that allows one’s body to be near weapon proof. Despite Chang’s impressive ability, Shuai has his doubts especially when it comes to a human’s immunity to guns. However, Chen is a believer and encourages Shuai to check out an upcoming rally. Shuai still remains dubious but believes that using Chang’s presence as a way to bolster up the confidence in the Chinese army, they might stand a chance.

Eventually, an incident breaks out in a village where a white foreigner with his Chinese lackey sparks a riot when the poor villagers beg for aid. One man’s baby dies and he accuses the foreigner and lackey of betrayal, attacking the foreigner. However, the foreigner brandishes a gun and shoots the father dead while Tsang watches in the background. As the foreigner takes off, Tsang follows behind and hitches a ride in the man’s carriage. He plays around with the foreigner until the guy takes out his gun once again to try and shoot Tsang. Tsang leaps off the carriage with only a bullet hole through his shirt before re-grouping with his two friends as they continue to make their way to the temple where the Boxers are holding a rally.

The scene at the temple is invigorating as numerous Boxers dressed in yellow and red watch a ritual take place. The three also watch along with two of the empress’ key advisors. Chang is brought to show off his kung fu as none other than Shaw Brothers perpetual favorite villain Ma Fu Yi, I mean Wang Lung-Wei, playing Li Jung Ching, performs a ceremony that would “protect” Chang and the Boxers with a spell. Two other boxers approach Chang with massive swords and deliver hard blows against Chang’s back and chest, but he repels them, which causes the Boxers to cheer, believing that the spell worked while the advisors have visually confirmed that something special is happening. Also, Tsang and Chen get caught up in the rally but Shuai remains skeptical, casting a disapproving glance towards Tsang, which calms his friend.

In the back, the three greet Chang as Tsang goes to inspect some statues. Li Jung comes in and admonishes Tsang for blasphemy in touching the statues but Tsang mentions how he sees through the spells. Li Jung considers it nonsense until Shuai corrects Li Jung in saying that the spells are there to give the Boxers courage. Li Jung smiles back at Shuai as it becomes clear that Li Jung is nothing more than a master manipulator who found his freak show act. However, the stakes are much higher with thousands of lives at stake. Also, Li Jung recognizes that Shuai is going to become an eventual menace to him but does nothing at the moment with Chang playing mediator. In turn, the three men are given positions to help train the troops.

Chang is given a scene where he practices a polearm with the Boxers while Tsang and Shuai discuss what they had witnessed. Tsang wonders whether or not Chang can withstand the guns or if the spells are real. Shuai tells him straight out no, which causes Tsang to be concerned. However, Shuai believes that using the moment as a way to bolster the courage of the Chinese might be the start to push for a revolution. He points to a book by a political thinker about revitalizing China, which I think is the basis of philosophy for the Boxers.

At any rate, Li Jung decides to act and directs the Boxers towards a Japanese encampment. Chang and Shuai have a conversation while the Boxers celebrate the night before the attack. Chang knows that his fate is imminent and that he won’t be able to withstand the guns. But his father had been murdered by a foreigner which is why he decides to go on this suicidal crusade.

The following day, the Boxers march towards the Japanese army camp. Chen, Tsang and Shuai watch in the background as Shuai realizes that most of the Boxers are going to die while Li Jung rides in a chair carried by some Boxers off to the side. The Boxers charge and meet an imminent doom with many being slaughtered by a gatlin gun. Morale breaks and the Boxers retreat. As the Boxers hightail it, Chen, Tsang and Shuai search for the missing Chang. Li Jung is also nowhere to be seen. Eventually, they discover Chang hiding in the bushes with some men while the Japanese army continue to monitor from their encampment. Shuai begs Chang to retreat but the memory of the slaughter remains fresh. So they decide to pull off a slightly smarter assault.

The group moves forward, using entrenchments (and each other) to evade bullets (many aren’t lucky). As they get close, their numbers are picked off. Once they reach a certain point, the guns fire causing the group to duck in their trench while the Japanese arm themselves with bayonets on their rifles. Chang makes a desperate roll as he sneaks towards the gatlin gun’s small building and flies up to receive GUN TO STOMACH. As he’s flying in the air with the sun beaming on him like some heavenly figure, the gatlin gun, which somehow manages to aim UPWARD, pierces the front of his stomach. Chang lands perched on the opening as he uses his stomach to block the continuously firing gatlin gun and wrestle with its operators. The bullets fly out from his back now (including his right butt check…go explain the physics there) and he dislodges the gun and uses the heavy machine to strangle the two operators to death.

A hush falls over the camp as everyone is stunned by the insanity of the scene (because it was ludicrous). Several Japanese soldiers enter to examine the aftermath of their fallen comrades with Chang in a frozen death pose above the two dead soldiers then knock him over. At the same time, the distraction allows the surviving group to penetrate the camp and retaliate. The small group manages a tiny bit of revenge but reinforcements arrive from the Japanese army and they retreat. The Japanese captain though gets a moment to inspect Chang and thinks that the feat was impossible as we get a signature Chang Cheh up close shot of Chang’s death face expression.

The three and the surviving Boxers escape but encounter more Japanese soldiers. The Boxers are massacred mercilessly and the three counterattack. They manage to take down those soldiers with hand-to-hand combat before hiding in the bush and mourning the loss of Chang. In particular, Chen is the most affected as he realizes the loss was heavy. While that occurs, the nefarious Li Jung finds the dead bodies of some Japanese soldiers. In turn, some Boxers meet with him and he lies on how he was responsible for their death. The Boxers celebrate, dumbly believing Li Jung’s story. As news spreads around the country side of this “victory”, the tale becomes more outrageous like the Aesop’s tale about the birds that carried a message around the world, only for the message to become some perversion of the original story. By the time news reaches the empress’ ears, the numbers have become grossly exaggerated and included high ranking officials. Of course, the empress by this story (the mind hears what it wants to hear) and she doesn’t do anything to verify this information. On the other hand, the three true heroes drink tea and see a contingent meet up with them but they realize that Li Jung’s story has become outrageous especially when they were the ones responsible for handling the killings.

Instead, a demonstration is setup for the empress where the four are taken to show off their kung fu. The empress makes a slightly lewd comment about their handsome appearance (dirty old woman!) while her advisors attempt to excuse the Boxers of their manners. Two additional red shirts are brought as guinea pigs for Li Jung’s machinations, including a young Philip Kwok, who does some flippy fake kung fu shit then gets some swords to the stomach. The empress can’t see that he’s dying and the Boxers take him outside to die. Then to show the effectiveness of this kung fu (or lack thereof) to the empress, another random job guy is brought out to do another flippy shit where the Boxers shoot him. His back is shot up and he bleeds but the Boxers come out to hide him slowly dying on his feet. Shuai and Tsang want to help but Li Jung warns him about the two jobbers’ sacrifice. It’s enough to impress the empress though to have her take more action against the foreigners.

The city goes into chaos as the empress instructs her advisors to have the Boxers attempt to take back the Legation Quarter. The Boxers first assault any business that may seem aligned with foreign institutes but end up taking money and bringing it back to Li Jung. The empress finds the chaos to be a positive sign and encourages more.

At this point, the story again diverges between the Chinese version and the non-Chinese one. The Chinese one spends more effort on developing the subplot of Master Cai, played by Hu Chin, and the General Waldersee, played by Richard Harrison. Master Cai apparently had a relationship with both General Waldersee and currently Shuai. She understands that this group is in trouble and wants to help them. General Waldersee though, I believe, is one of the key heads for the German army and he along with some others plan to quell the uprising in the streets. That part of the story still is in the non-Chinese version. However, the Chinese version introduces us to Tsang’s girlfriend Xiao Jiu, played by Fu Sheng’s actual wife/girlfriend Jenny Tseng.

During the chaos in the streets though, Shuai goes off momentarily, leaving Tsang and Chen to hide and fend for themselves. Chen becomes impatient and decides to help his Boxer brothers. Tsang tries to stop Chen but can’t. Chen rounds up a small force of Boxers to defend the city’s wall as the Japanese invaders march in. Despite being outnumbered and outclasses in almost every way possible, Chen encourages his men to stand up for their country, which emboldens them. A harrowing fight breaks out where Chen and his men are slaughtered mercilessly.

With the wall destroyed, the Boxers demoralized and the foreigners now in control of the city, the empress goes into retreat. She’s forced to disguise herself as a commoner, leaving behind her fantastic jewelry while her hand trembles as the explosions outside shake her palace. One of the advisors makes a comment about her safety where another repudiates him in saying how the gods look favorably upon the empress for whom she is. That forces the advisor to repeatedly slap himself for blasphemy. As the empress is escorted away, the palace goes into chaos where all decorum to thrown out the window and her servants now are focused to fend for themselves. Elsewhere, Boxers are rounded up and beheaded, including one sycophant to Li Jung who cowardly pleads for his life.

When Shuai returns to find Tsang and Chen, Tsang admits that he couldn’t stop Chen. So it’s up to them. They try subterfuge to gain some revenge which leads to them building a reputation. Eventually, they encounter General Waldersee and have a fight where Shuai goes weaponless against Waldersee’s sword. They defeat Waldersee and spare him. The Chinese version also has Master Cai provide him with info but the embarrassment leads Waldersee to put up a bounty for the two. Tsang and Shuai go undercover and decide that they need to escape the city. Shuai goes out first and manages to beat back a small force setup near the destroyed section of the wall.

Tsang though tries to escape with Xiao but encounter Japanese troops. He does his best to defend them and the Japanese captain returns, wanting Tsang alive (probably for the bounty and for pride). At first, Tsang plays around with the troops but the fight gets serious when he finally uses one of the guns to kill a solider. At that point, the captain realizes that Tsang means business and shows no mercy. While Tsang battles the Japanese soldiers, our old friend Li Jung tries to escape. Some disguised Boxers ambush him but he kills them all before encountering Shuai. Knowing that Shuai understands the truth, Li Jung have a battle where Li Jung pulls out a few tricks with a short sword, proving that he’s still fairly dangerous. Shuai does get cut but when Li Jung attempts to run off, Shuai kicks the blade through Li Jung’s back and kills the evil charlatan in a karmic manner before heading off to the sunset (presumably towards Taiwan where that one political writer is located).

On the other hand, Tsang gets shot and becomes much more serious as he goes into a one-on-one fight with the Japanese captain. He manages to thwart the captain but the Japanese soldiers go after Xiao and Tsang tries to fight them off. Both are shot with Xiao dying in his arms. Sadly, Tsang cradles his lover as the sneaky Japanese captain attempts to assault Tsang while he’s down. However, Tsang takes up arms and rather than using his kung fu, he shoots the captain multiple times, standing up and planting himself over his dead lover. Other foreigners show up and witness the bloodied Tsang as defending his lover and they all lower their hats in respect (at least the American soldiers do). In the meantime, Shuai continues with heroic music to not leave the movie on as somber of a note.

So when I first saw this movie, it was quite emotional as I had known Fu Sheng and Chi Kuan-Chun from my other favorite Shaw Brothers production, Five Masters of Death. The general tone of this movie was quite tragic and at that time, I wasn’t as cognizant of my ethnicity as I am now especially when it comes to cultural and national politics. But when you see this movie especially back in the day, it’s pretty unforgettable. I think the tragedy aspect plays a huge part.

On the other hand, watching this movie with more contemporary/critical eyes, you see various flaws in certain aspects. I think the best way to describe my general sentiment is from a quote by my friend who once stated, “Chang Cheh does NOT know how to do modern films.” The Boxer Rebellion, while being a period piece, does have certain wild moments like Chang flying down and trying to absorb a FUCKING GATLIN GUN TO THE STOMACH. I know I’m not the only person who thought that scene was ridiculous as I’ve read others laughing in recalling that particular moment. Also, I think when Chen throws himself into the air with the Japanese blasting him in a freeze frame, it’s very humorous in a similar vein.

Also, despite how this movie is meant to be an epic period piece with tons of extras, the use of more modern weaponry and the larger scale outside, I still think it acts as a semi low key propaganda piece. It really casts the Japanese in a horrible light where they’re shown as merciless, unthinking, fodder for the heroes to beat up. And while I’m sure the actual atrocities are true (the black and white photos seem legitimate ones used), none of these people get any character development nor have anything redeemable about them.

On the other hand, there is a nationalistic type of vibe going on here especially with the revitalize China book. I think the Chinese probably view the Empress Dowager as being incompetent especially as the Qing dynasty was ending. So the movie isn’t just about China vs the foreigners or particularly the Japanese but it tries to take an inward glance at some of the elements that allowed that situation to happen. The odd man out to me was Li Jung though because he seemed like a charlatan that found his money mark and trick pony to get his share of the glory.

The Chinese version for me at least is something I don’t care for as much just because of the pacing. It’s longer and focuses more on some of the subplots. I do enjoy the costumes from the court though as those were quite elaborate. That is one aspect that I think the Shaw Brothers studio had done well where they could manufacture parts of China’s history in visuals.

At any rate, this is certainly one of Chang Cheh’s more memorable works. The kung fu itself really wasn’t remarkable compared to other movies where it was a bigger focus. I think it does provide a good blend of action, visuals, some history and decent characters who are approachable.

The post Shaw Brothers The Boxer Rebellion 1976 Review appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

Once the event starts, you encounter waves of foes that assault you from all areas of the arena. As you go through waves, you progress from Normal to higher Torments that eventually become similar to Pit tiers. The general premise is that the feature is similar to Echoing Nightmares in Diablo 3. Unlike Echoing Nightmares, the environment isn’t as chaotic and the arena is far larger to move around. You can get various foes from the game as well as mini bosses, including one that I’ve never seen thus far. Sometimes you can encounter goblins while portals spawn in. I’m not sure what the consequence is for leaving portals alone but they flash on the mini map.

In my run, I took my Barbarian, who has been handling Torment 11 just fine. My Barbarian isn’t optimally geared and I use an Endurant Faith unique charm to bolster her survivability. In a few cases, her health did go down to some sort of poison or damage-over-time effect. I did fine up until around Pit tier 110. That’s when it became much harder to take down mobs. My hand started to hurt and I was getting bored quickly of the repetitive game play. So I simply opted to die (or as they describe it “getting overwhelmed). Once that happens, the event stops and you can resurrect then collect your loot. The loot is located in one corner with a special box. Once you open that, various additional goblin type of portals spawn, leaving goblin bags.

So let me start by addressing a comment I read on the reddit forum where the beginning difficulty should be selectable. For the most part, the developers almost verbatim copied the feature from Diablo 3 over except for the various environment effects (like constant explosions and meteors dropping from the sky). Part of that copy involved having players start at a lower tier to work their way upward. I feel like the event simply lasted forever and it took a while for new spawns to come in. Lower levels are pointless to me but probably should start at whatever Pit level you’ve conquered. The real issue is that the event takes a fair amount of time before you can arrive near the difficulty you should be playing at.

Honestly, this felt not that much different than Infernal Hordes once the event starts except you can pause momentarily in Inferno Hordes after a period. In general, the game play is nothing more than a typical gauntlet that tries your patience and endurance rather than your skill. I think once you past Pit 100 or so, the loot really doesn’t get much better. That might be a guess but you receive so many of these goblin bags that the bulk of the loot feels like garbage. The only item of note that I found was my first Mythic Seal. Luckily, it was the one that reduces set bonuses by one and had some decent affixes for my build related to berserking. The rest of the loot appeared more in quantity than quality.

But I have to ask why was this event added as an end game activity? It really doesn’t stand out in the scheme of things. The numerous goblin bags you receive at the end of the event mostly drop currency, runes and charms/seals. But you can get most of this stuff elsewhere. I think the Mythic Seal was more serendipitous than a reflection of the event itself. But the real issue is that this game mode really doesn’t mean anything compared to Echoing Nightmares. With Echoing Nightmares, you could get gems that you’d use to augment your gear so it had an actual side purpose worth doing. I probably wouldn’t have an issue of this event if it were faster or distinct from similar gauntlet style systems in the game.

Beyond that I would like to talk briefly about the Mythic Seal I found. First, I was in Torment 11 when I discovered my first Mythic Seal but I think the relevant part is conquering a Pit Tier 112 equivalent of the Echoing Hatred event. Possibly, because I hadn’t located one, the game took pity upon me. However, the Mythic Seal itself was inside one of the Goblin Loot bags where probably 20 or so had dropped at that tier of difficulty. So I think it’s a combination of things that gave me a higher chance of finding one rather than a single definitive thing.

Second, the Mythic Seal had the Ring of Royal Grandeur type of effect in reducing the requirements for Talisman sets to become active. This is probably the thing I sought the most because the effect is quite intriguing when paired up with various seals. For my Whirlwind Barbarian, I typically use the Sescheron’s Fury set along with an Endurant Faith for tankiness. The original legendary seal I used had Dark Pact, which wasn’t really relevant to my build (because I snagged it from a random pile in my stash). So I ditched the Endurant Faith and old seal for the Mythic one. The Mythic one had two berserking type of affixes, which were far more relevant, even though people say that the Mythic seal itself really isn’t effective for a Whirlwind Barbarian (most people use a Crown of Lucion unique charm here, which I do have). However, I had a few Berserker’s Crucible charms lying around in my inventory, which is considered useful for a starting Whirlwind Barbarian, so I swapped over to using two of those which gives me 50% more damage, 20% cast speed and 30% damage reduction while berserking. In comparison, Crown of Lucion is supposed to give up to 90% damage increase by casting a resource using ability as well as increasing its cost. So I think most people opt for the higher damage. In my case, I went for a hybrid that seemed like an in between compromise for Endurant Faith and Crown of Lucion along with the higher attack speed. I really don’t know why people aren’t choosing this option. I will say that without Endurant Faith, periodically I can get chunked particularly from DoT type of effects. But I think it’s kinda cool and I want to continue using it for now.

The other thing I wanted to point out about this Mythic Seal is how the affixes were Barbarian specific. I’m sure it’s fine in general but I like the idea of twinking out alts who might require a combo set. On the other hand, given that I have one of these now, I might look into the so-called Immortal Barbarian build. I personally don’t like the build idea because it sounds very gimmicky. Also, I would have to farm up new gear to get rid of the various maximum life I’ve taken as well as redo my Paragon Board (which I hate). But it might be fun just to try out since my Barbarian is already fairly well geared. I think if I did that, it would give new life to my Barbarian because I think it’s a little stale for me. Lastly, I had been considering playing a Paladin just because I’m bored and want to try something different. Some people have classified the Paladin as the worst performing class with some builds at the B tier. On the other hand, I would mostly be doing a Wing Strike type of build or maybe Zeal just to see something different from my S11 Auradin. I’m not expecting much nor do I really want to push the build far.

At any rate, going back to the Echoing Hatred activity, this is one that needs a lot of work. Right now, as it stands, Echoing Hatred resembles more of a live beta test for its performance rather than an activity that’s truly ready to be turned into part of the core end game grind. I think with regards to the Mythic Seal I found, that was sheer luck and I wouldn’t want this type of activity to be the defining thing to obtain that type of item. Besides the sameness to other timed gauntlet events, my primary complaint about this event is how long it last. Inferno Hordes already can take between 20-30 minutes but you can get small pee breaks between waves. I couldn’t even tell how long Echoing Hatred lasted but it felt like it went on forever. My hand ended up hurting, I was clearly bored and unmotivated to push further and thought that this was an exercise in futility by the end. So to me, they need to cap the event’s time limit or figure out how to speed up the difficulty progression. All of these elements just make it feel that they snagged the old Greater Rift gauntlet code from Diablo 3 that would provide a “test” to see what level of a Greater Rift you could/should handle. Finally, the idea of having a single arena serve as this bland unending wave gauntlet challenge is mind numbing. Personally, I think you should only have to do this event once each season at most because it’s not good, not rewarding well enough and painful to do.

The post Diablo 4 Lord of Hatred: Echoing Hatred End Game Activity Impressions appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

Leveling was very smooth mostly because I had gone through a few characters already and had all the Runes I would need to start off quickly as well as max starting skill points. Again, for alt leveling, skills being capped based on your level feels crummy and almost pointless just because constant re-spec’ing already is a miserable experience. Here, I think if you have the skill points available and you have an alt character, you should be able to access any level on the tree. If the idea is to slow down leveling, then it makes no sense as many players will probably just use the Whisper Cache trick to power level up alts. In my case, I saved a few excess season caches once I hit around level 40. I found that for alts, one you do the majority of the strongholds and get to roughly level 40 or so, the last 20-30 levels feel more like busy work. So that’s when I use some spare caches just to finish off or get close to where I need.

For the early part of the leveling experience, I ended up doing a Minion type of build that uses the Command Fallen and Bombardment combination. Warlock minions drastically differ from other summoning builds as their minions mostly are temporary, thus forcing you to re-summon them. They function more like a demolition crew which makes the Warlock summoning style less passive than a Druid or Necromancer. On the other hand, the AI seems slightly better as these critters act more like a heat seeking missile. Also, there’s a Rampage greater demon that smashes enemies or rather a spot and continues to do so until you cast them onto a different spot. The most impressive summon though is the monstrous sword wielding Fiend of Abbadon, which reminded of Ragnarok from Thor.

Once I hit level 70, I altered the build slightly using a variety of boss trophies to get the build enabling uniques. I was missing an aspect or two so the build might’ve been a little off. Also, I never managed to acquire the Talisman set for this build and only found two pieces. Oddly, I managed to quickly scrape up the Apocalypse Talisman set instead (which was the build I was aiming for). The Minion build was fine and many people described it as tanky. However, I found that the lack of AoE and the funky swapping between forms was off. Some of it reminded me of the old Chicken build for the Diablo 3 Witch Doctor. I simply didn’t care for it here as I tend to dislike builds that swap context and UI. I think the experience is bad because of how you build a certain muscle memory which builds like this defy.

Right now, I’m running the Apocalypse build. What interested was the Umbral Chain skill in seeing these odd chains rotating around in the battlefield as well as the giant nuclear explosion that goes off periodically. I have the basic gear setup (included the Helm of Perdition). So far it’s a very impactful build that effectively one shots almost everything if you can get your Apocalypse spell off. It is a slower build compared to other ones I’ve played because you need to combo certain skills together to really max out your DPS. But it really isn’t that bad at this stage.

I think the real issue for the Apocalypse build comes once you begin pushing Pit levels or higher torments. The main comment I’ve read is its squishiness. You do emphasize getting a lot of life and have some defenses like employing the Endurant Faith as a charm. Where I think most people have issues is the double whammy effective of a brief pause during a cast then having too much indistinguishable screen clutter. Since on death effects now plague the game, the excess visual clutter prevents someone not paying attention to see things like the Executioner Sword effect. However, I think Blizzard is going to have a very difficult time fixing this issue for Warlocks because of how they made the class vastly messier than others.

I really think the solution is simple though where they need to remove the excess effects and go with a light opacity. Even if they were to remove the on death effects, you still have too much screen clutter interfering with other visuals like chests that lack clear outlines. But I think the positive in this is that hopefully it forces Blizzard to have a deeper examination into the visual design portion of the game because that part needs a lot of work.

I am glad that I gave this build a try though. I don’t think it’s something I will stick with for the rest of the season. Maybe I might try to push her glyphs to max and see how much gear I can improve upon. And while the big explosions does provide some satisfaction, the class itself with the two key flaws doesn’t provide a compelling enough reason to go further at this stage. I might either return to my Barbarian and attempt to aim for an immortal setup (which honestly seems boring and silly) or I might give my Druid a second shot. The three remaining classes of Spiritborn, Necromancer and even Paladin don’t really have any special builds that entice me at this point. I’d really prefer that Blizzard fixes up the main bugs from various classes then have a kick ass Season 14 with some new end game content that becomes permanent additions to the game and expand on the War Plans activities.

The post Diablo 4 Lord of Hatred: Warlock Class Review appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

In general, I believe the majority of the player base sees the two main features of War Plans and the Horadric Cube as the biggest improvements in the core game. The modifiers for several areas of content in War Plans certainly improve the mid to end game grind and give people longer term goals. Then the Horadric Cube melds well and extends the base crafting system where items of all rarities and types finally serve a clear purpose as opposed to pure materials that end up not having any impact. Both systems breath much needed life into a game that despite the brand being the forerunner in its class/genre, has severely lagged behind as other games have moved in to its territory.

However, I would argue that these two systems, while lauded in enhancing the core game play, have ideas that can be found elsewhere. I think what makes these systems very good for this genre is the reasonable simplicity in allowing people to utilize it without too much of a learning curve compared to other games that may have more complex sets of like systems. For instance, when you put a point into the activity tree, you should immediately see the consequences of your actions. Likewise, the new currency improves how one can target craft what they really want on top of adding a moderate amount of RNG. In that situation, as long as you have the materials (and the gold to boot), you should get close to receiving an ideal item, which feels very good because it turns your crafting experience into a fun little project. In addition, the mysterious Transfiguration piece can allow for an Uber item if the RNG gods are in your favor.

Nonetheless, my problem is that the continual dependence on RNG as partaking heavily in progression is what hurts crafting more than anything. I still think you should be able to deterministically craft but that the power gains ought to be progressive as you’re continuing to build the item you really want. Dealing with situations like zapping a critical GA affix while you’re attempting to get rid of a similarly categorized modifier is horribly frustrating especially as items are even more randomized than ever. The only difference between this and Tempering (especially prior to the change in deterministic tempering) is that the Cube can be blamed for its mysterious forces as opposed to a moronic, incompetent Blacksmith.

As for the skill revamp, I think that the changes, while better overall, aren’t as well embraced compared to War Plans and the Horadric Cube addition. Mindlessly, placing a single point into a skill, especially when the main skill gets capped feels like a worse version of the old +5 main stat meme from Diablo 3. At this stage, the skill tree in Diablo 4 is more like an enhanced version of Diablo 3’s skills with the Rune system, except that you can increase your skill power as well as enable certain affects as many build defining Aspects (and Uniques I believe) had been moved into the main skill upgrade. The two side choices though are not much better than being asked, “Paper or plastic” at the grocery store (and if you live in CA, then you don’t even get that choice anymore). So in a way, while clearing up the way a build is defined, the skill tree still feels mostly lacking without being able to put extra points into more modifiers for a given skill (which has been my key argument of how one ought to build the skill tree like increasing your fireball size vs how fast you can fire it off).

Because of the massive rearrangement for how skills would work moving forward as well as adding the Horadric Cube for crafting, virtually all items and their systems had been reworked. Keystone passives are gone, Aspects have been rearranged or removed, Uniques now have randomized affixes but allow for Tempering. I think the sheer volume of changes for itemization have created a very disorienting effect. Many people are criticizing the changes to Uniques where I interpret how the whole “we took a glance at all Aspects and Uniques” as the Blizzard developers saying fuck it and just tossing Uniques into the normal item pool to effectively make all items, except Mythics, share affixes. The difference is that Uniques now have a very frustrating item hunt where not only do you need to find the unique, you need to get one that has the ideal affixes, the Ancestral property and GA properties attached too. So this just adds a new layer of unreasonable RNG into the mix that reeks of pure laziness on the developers’ part.

One key mention about the Horadric Cube that deserves a separate paragraph is Transfiguration. Maybe this is by far the most potent ability in the Cube since it can add power to an item. For amulets, you effectively can get a secondary Aspect, which is similar to Sanctification except that only Aspects can be applied here. Getting the right one still is random, but it helps deal with the case where you run out of slots on gear for key aspects. However, one of the neat features is the how you can get multiple Transfiguration rolls. I’m not sure what the limit is but I have seen up to three. Many people attempt to get the Gem Strength one due to the rework of the gem system as well as the power creep from the change. But hitting multiple Transfigurations with key affixes/properties is probably the main end game now for players as the ultimate part of the item hunt that puts the Horadric Cube as main tool in reaching your end game goals.

One small but neat adjustment is the idea of Boss Trophies. At first, I had no idea what these were. But apparently, Boss Trophies convert into the old Boss Summoning material. Instead of summoning bosses (which you now use a generic Lair Key or Greater Lair Key, which I think is better for handling loot), you can use these trophies to better target farm uniques in conjunction with the Cube. In general, I think just doing the highest Torment level boss you can will net you the best uniques. But for early situations or for alts, the Boss Trophy system might be a great way to obtain build defining items without dealing with boss mechanics early on.

Next, let’s talk about the Talisman/Seal/Charm systems. This probably is certainly the area where the most power creep has been added into the expansion. I feel when the Diablo 4 team examined Diablo 3 in trying to make Diablo 3 fit into the Diablo 4 setting, they effectively had inverted the way set armor pieces worked with the Horadric Cube layer. I believe many people who played Diablo 3 in the end disliked the addition of set bonuses mostly because of how limiting but necessary they made gear choices. The inversion then happened for Charms where they brought back the idea of a better itemized version of the Diablo 2 charms system but crossed them with the idea of sets from Diablo 3.

While the developers mentioned that the goal in having the set Charms was to prevent gear conflict with armor, the real point of contention from the weary Diablo crowd was the multipliers added to the gear. While the developers did agree having ridiculous numbers like 10k was something they intended to avoid, the higher end multipliers even at 500% blow the math out of proportion. It’s not uncommon to hear how certain builds are hitting for trillions or more.

Part of the set multipliers I believe was done to force players who have not upgraded to purchase the expansion. Blizzard is horribly notorious for invalidating gear as a way of social engineering to push players to buy their expansions. World of Warcraft historically had a similar problem where end game raiding sets became irrelevant once the new expansion came out. All the work put in to obtain the high end gear would quickly be made irrelevant as plain green gear after a few levels had enough stats to be competitive. In turn, players who do not have the funds or maybe even want to buy the expansions are left to the wolves as they are pretty much removed from any end game activities.

I do think that the set charms themselves can be fun in adding effects to existing skills. Like the companion druid set providing additional companions as well as the bear tanks were quite nifty. And in my latest character of a Dancing Knives Rogue, the leans heavily into the Clone ability where it auto fires your Rain of Arrows and Death Trap, which is pretty cool since you’re getting more effects in the form of a trigger. I believe as long as these abilities compliment various skills and don’t force players into selecting a limited number of skills then they can be effective.

The biggest failures I’m seeing right now though are the questionable Mythic Seals. Besides their rarity, many people are complaining about their ineffectual nature. The one that allows for a full set and another half set most of the time isn’t competitive to a pure unique while the one that supports three uniques and no sets is fairly weak. I think part of the issue is that the ideas here are novel but not exciting. This would be a great end game chase item if it didn’t seem so niche.

Then there’s the increased Torment levels. This is one area I’m really not a fan of and I think most people see it as a cheap cop-out for attempting to do a better job at determining actual difficulty and scaling. I mentioned that other games have handled the idea of real difficulty while allowing player agency. Beyond the insane power spikes, the only real choice in difficulty at this stage (minus War Plans) is determining whether one wants to participate in hardcore or not. Eventually, once solo, self-found makes it’s foray into the game, that would be another level of choice. But I think the game has no idea how to handle difficulty in the form of a slider.

I’ve argued that a game that deals with real difficulty in a better manner is Baldur’s Gate. While their difficulty does partly use enemy hit points as a part of their system, they have other elements such as permanently dead companions, maxed out hit point rolls, etc. that allow a player to still experience the game without enemy mechanics interfering as poorly. Like if you wanted a story mode experience, you could set the game to a low level. Enemies would still pose problems but you wouldn’t be artificially inflating numbers with out of control multipliers. So this is an area that needs a lot of work. War Plans solves a part of the scaling and agency issues but the core problem continues to be multipliers and cosmetic difficulty.

While War Plans does improve the experience of several existing activities, the only real new end game activities are Echoing Hatred and the new pinnacle boss. Echoing Hatred was purported to be a truly rare event. I found out the other day on reddit that Echoing Hatred is a flag and that there’s an item you need to pick up to turn on the flag, which can only be done on the character that discovers this item. While I get that the event should be rare, the most common complaint is that you simply can’t find one. The only thing I can figure here is that the developers made this event so rare, only the most hard core players could experience is so that they could better tune it. If that is the case, it’s a really stupid move that puts it on the level of the Burning Crusade’s Sunwell raid experience. Why bother creating a mode that only the tiniest fraction of your audience can experience?

Then there’s the Mephisto fight. No one I’ve seen on Twitch actually enjoys this fight (except one person whom I said is a masochist). While listening to Mathil1 the other day, he made a comment that I completely agree with where the way it was done was fine for a campaign boss. Meaning, it’s a one and done deal in that implementation. I’ve argued that bosses that are intended to be farmed should not have ridiculous mechanics especially disruptive cut scenes or situations that keep players waiting between phases. You want players to get in and out. This clearly was a massive L from the vast majority of the player base. Even those that can do this boss, I think dislike it because it’s made by someone who probably handles Raid encounters for WoW rather than someone who understands what an ARPG gamer wants in a boss fight.

From there, I want to address the fishing mini game. It’s a simple thing to talk about since there’s no challenge in it whatsoever. Besides the initial time I did this for the campaign, I completely forgot about it. I’m sure there’s a purpose somewhere but I don’t see any incentive for doing this activity beyond some seasonal challenge. Even then I couldn’t care less.

Next, let’s talk about some changes to some of the end game systems. I think the biggest improvement has been the updates to the Pit. Once you unlock a few key nodes on the Pit’s tree, the Pit becomes a lot smoother as a way to level up Glyphs. Even before then, the layout updates and the fact that you’re not trapped in a shitty arena where you cooldowns might’ve gotten reset (or upset) is a far better situation. I don’t mind that monsters continue to attack you during the boss fight either because in a few instances, that probably helps the scenario. Maybe the only current issue is that once the boss goes down, straggler monsters continue to plague you. I don’t know why that is outside of an oversight. It’s more annoying at this stage than a deal breaker. I do really like how the Butcher can randomly appear and be the end of the run.

Helltides received a nice upgrade because of the War Plans. Chaos Waves, bosses, etc. are huge boost to me. I think more nodes can be added here to make Helltides more dynamic. Dungeons still need more work. The goblin thing is very rare from what I’ve heard. But I think that dungeons still require more dynamics. The mods are available in some form but the player should have more agency in choosing them. Inferno Hordes don’t feel great. I do think that certain aspects were fixed like the Masses being problematic but my primary complaint is that Spires and Aether Fiends take too long for low reward. The issue of frequently repeating Spires seems to be back and these events are plain boring (because you just spin around waiting for things to spawn or assault you). Boss lair encounters are okay. The Nemesis portal is a cool thing hampered by a recent “fix” that added a nonsensical 30 second timer that cancels the portal (which was done as a hotfix to prevent some people from hacking it) And though you can spec things to occur outside of the Boss Lair, the Boss Lair itself should receive more effects and things to make the encounter itself more interesting beyond the Nemesis modifier. I did try the Headrot currency but think it should be found on the ground rather than stored as a seed in your inventory. Finally, the Undercity portion lacks depth to me. I’ve tried the portals piece but they’re very lackluster.

Beyond these things, there are hidden things in the game like the cow level, a hidden Pit boss, multiple transfigurations with a variety of potential and the discovery of Mythic Charms. Right now, it’s unknown what additional hidden things may pop up but if there’s one thing about Blizzard it’s that they do like surprises. Even so most people who have uncovered these easter eggs know there’s nothing great with them (except Transfiguration). Mythic Charms might have more impact if they didn’t conflict against a BiS type of Unique Charm but I think the potential for their future usage is there.

In general though, my belief is that these changes aren’t so much of a “knock it out of the park” win but more of a keeping the game relevant and finally off life support. I cannot emphasize enough how legacy systems still lag the game while new issues with visual and user experience prevent the game from deserved scorn. The nerf to the Paladin with the official launch along with the visual mess known as the Warlock make what ought to have been the stars of the show turn into supporting cast members.  I do think that the changes to the core systems were a necessity for the game to move forward. However, beyond the suggested changes like more upgrade side nodes, there’s enough of a usable base to work from rather than restructure for the umpteenth time.

The current season 13 to me seems more like an open beta test than a finished product. There really is no season mechanic beyond the expansion itself, which is fine because the developers need to determine what the newest pain points are. I have a feeling that it will take at least two seasons before most of these core problems are solved. But I think that the skill trees, itemization and crafting problems are mostly resolved. So they probably won’t have to do much more work on those issues.

I do think that the next season needs to be very strong so that players won’t feel burnt out after this one. Besides whatever mechanic they decide to introduce, the developers need to continue building upon this new foundation. I hope that the older legacy systems like World Bosses, Legions and Strongholds receive a closer look at to incorporate into War Plans with their own activity trees. Likewise, I would like to see older seasons eventually return as additional content for Whispers or nodes on the activity trees. Just those elements alone ought to provide a major boost to content without the game feeling like it’s just rehashing stuff. While it would be returning older content, it’s still decent content that provides more things to do with their own set of rewards.

The post Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred, did Blizzard Knock it out of the Park? appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

The Good

• Removing Passives from the Skill Tree – I think removing the old passives, including the last key notables, was an excellent choice. I think for newer players, the passives made little sense and not tangible enough especially when you needed one to work with other conditional elements. Probably, the biggest bonus to me was the idea of relegating passive upgrades to the Paragon Board or Aspect leveling and mostly trying to keep the core skill tree relatively clean.
• More Meaningful Upgrades to Skills – This idea was more like an upgrade of Skill Runes from Diablo 3. I think the pieces here are clearer in intent like changing a Sorcerer’s Hydra into a Frost one or adding another Wolf for a Druid. In addition, by cleaning up the skill tree and enforcing more meaningful side choices, I think the game now has a clearer path for room to expand on the skill tree rather than combating passives that may outweigh choosing a skill or some other obscure mechanic hidden behind odd combinations and conditionals in the backend systems that certain players may abuse.
• The Horadric Cube – There’s no question that the Horadric Cube is a massive win here. The existing crafting systems (Tempering, Enchanting, Aspects, Socketing and Masterworking) actually synergize quite well with this new system that make crafting actually fun and interesting to perform. The last expansion’s Rune system also works quite well when you can use the Horadric Cube upgrade Rune in conjunction with the Jeweler’s 3:1 random craft to get end game Legendary runes. This is not a perfect crafting system but it’s clearly a vastly improved scenario that was a badly needed addition to Diablo 4 to make crafting actually an endgame goal.
• War Plans – Compared to the failed and wasted Raid system from Vessel of Hatred, War Plans has proven to be a fairly decent (albeit simple) end game system that enhances your activities and provides certain key rewards. The real key though is the addition of activity trees where people can use the experience gained to augment their end game. While the current implementation is still what I consider a rough draft, it’s a great starting point to incorporate past seasons, future seasons and potentially integrate outdated content into the core experience for the player.
• Talisman System – The new Talisman system is a nice addition in trying to further enhance the player’s power. I think of the Talisman system as more of an inverted Kanai’s Cube system especially when you take into account how a player can use a Unique charm (or 3 with the Mythic version) to “add” a gear slot without sacrificing a key armor slot (e.g. a Spiritborn can now use Helm of Perdition and employ their unique helmet as a charm). I think an underrated piece here is gaining small affixes like Movement speed which really helps early leveling until one can acquire decent boots and the higher end Tempering recipes. It’s still a pretty rough system that can use adjustments but I can see potentially in the future how more slots can be added if Blizzard wanted to but still retaining the main concept intact.
• Loot Filter – Major QoL win here. I started using one the other day (got it working!) and the change in drops is quite significant in a positive manner. I think setting up a generic filter isn’t too bad in just getting rid of non-Ancestrals, uniques and Aspect upgrades. But the main win is clearing up the clutter especially from certain bosses that have bad loot explosions that are a real pain to handle.
• Goblin Realm – Yes, this is a D3 copied idea but it still works when you get it. I don’t think the drops are as impactful mostly due the limitations of ones inventory. Also, the boss at the end (a smaller version of Greed, I believe) feels lackluster compared to the original D3 version. It’s still a nice surprise when you get it.
• Chaos Waves in Helltides – This is a small feature that carried over from S10 which is used as a node on the Helltide activity tree. But it’s a really fun one that provides some neat bonuses. One of my favorites is when you can get unique drops especially on fresher characters.
• Extra Bosses Everywhere – I think it’s cool that you can now see various bosses outside of their lairs. The Nemesis one is very intimidating but also incredibly rewarding when you encounter one. But this is the prime example of what I had been talking about in previous blogs on how having customizable content experiences can really enhance the core game play.
• Changes to the Pit Layout – The Pit is something I never really cared for because of how it was meant to mirror Greater Rifts from Diablo 3 but it never hits its mark because of the structure. I think the layout changes to the Pit are really good because it changes up the map configurations. They’re still mostly linear in nature but you can go down small side paths without having to deal with extraneously long treks while fighting the countdown timer. Also, I’m very glad they removed the horrible boss arena aspect because those were just problematic. That makes boss fights a little more dynamic, especially since mobs can still swarm you after a boss gets summoned. In some cases, that could be a boon.
• Faster Glyph Leveling – While I’m still not happy about the Pit being the only mechanism to level up Glyphs, the part I do think is very good is how you can use the activity tree to configure more points into glyph leveling. It’s still tedious to level Glyphs but you can get a large number of upgrades faster. That means less Pits in general, even though I think the activity has become less painful and tedious in general.
• Aspect Reduction – I think one thing is that a lot of Aspects had been removed, consolidated and/or moved elsewhere to skills or uniques. I still think there’s a lot of bloat with Aspects but the general noise ratio has shrunk, which was badly needed. I still am uncertain how they see Aspects but I do like the fact that they’re not the main thing which enabled the core builds any longer.
• Temper Recipe Reduction – Like Aspects, I think the number of Temper recipes had been reduced. Certain parts I will miss like utility Tempers you could add to boots or armor that would increase the size of certain skills. I think those type of things really work better in a skill tree where you have meaningful skill side upgrades that a player can put more points into. So hopefully, those types of Tempers will eventually return but in the form of either side nodes in the skill tree or an updated Paragon Board.
• More Builds – In general, there are more flavors of builds than before due to the main upgrade to skills that flavor a build. Not all builds might be considered meta or end game viable but the shake up in these systems do make things vastly more interesting, at least for now.
• More Meaningful Crafting Materials – One of my blogs addressed how certain key crafting materials ought to be highly sought after and be elevated into first class citizens for end game crafts (similar to Sanctification). Well, we got them in a variety of ways. Likewise, it makes things like Tributes and certain Dungeon affixes highly sought after.

The Bad

• Rune Reduction – It seems that after taking a pass at the existing systems, Runes got hit too. In a few cases, I am not overly fond of their removal such as the Earthquake rune. Oddly, in searching for the ability to cause Earthquakes, I can’t find anything. Maybe it’s in HotA but I really miss being able to level a new character with Bac – Tec and running around and destroying things.
• Material Scarcity – I think in changing these systems, material scarcity continues to plague the game. Right now, the main missing ingredient is Forgotten Souls. I heard from Kripparian’s stream the other night that Ancestrals give Forgotten Souls (which was a great tip btw) but they still remain very tough to find especially once you start min/max’ing a character (or in my case multiple characters). I suppose in a game that requires a clear grind, having a high end resource being semi-scarce is a good thing but it is a pain point. For some things like the Unique crafting material, I think it’s fine to be rare. But Forgotten Souls is a real tough one at this stage due to either the cost or limited amount one can receive. It’s not a be-all/end-all issue but again it is a pain point that might need a small adjustment.
• Legion Events – While Legion events are still fun to do, they need a reason to do them. With the introduction of War Plans, I really hope that they change these activities to activated events rather than timed ones and that they become incorporated into War Plans. As a group activity, these as-is are fun to do. I think having a separate activity tree for Legion events, keeping them part of the open but instanced world and making them more customizable with key rewards (can anyone say crafting materials????), these things should be able to make a major comeback.
• World Bosses – Like Legion events, World Bosses should not be timed anymore. I think making these summonable like Azmodan from S11 is the way this encounter ought to be handled. Making them summonable and incorporating them into War Plans with their own activity tree will greatly improve the novelty of having World Bosses as opposed to once again being a 10 second semi loot pinada (which apparently they are now again)
• No Dedicated Whisper Activity during War Plans Configuration – This part I don’t understand. I know there’s a separate activity tree for Whispers but I’m mystified why they weren’t included as part of the War Plans setup. There’s also a few activity nodes that I don’t understand like having monsters coming out of the caches. I can’t tell if that’s what is causing the in town monsters. But I wish Whispers became another activity one could complete to increase the variety of War Plans things to do. Like one thing I would do to make Whisper activities really interesting is to use the activity tree to add “green Helltide” type of old seasonal Whisper content back (e.g. turning a zone into a Vampire zone or bringing the Realm Walker). Having the old seasons become an activity a user can add to the node of the Whisper activity tree would vastly improve the variety and number of things one could do while not being competitive directly with Helltides (because we can still keep the Helltide content as a separate activity that is mutually exclusive from these Whisper activities and give players alternative zones to farm). This should really be a no brainer and a lower effort feature because of how Blizzard has these activities already built into the history of the game.
• Strongholds – Strongholds badly need love. I think a lot of players avoid these because they’ve done them a thousand times. But now they’re an impediment because of how certain dungeons can be blocked. For War Plan activities and Escalating Sigils (I think the game just kicks you out if you encounter an area with blocked access because of Strongholds). I personally don’t mind Strongholds because they are effectively an easy way to gain levels early on and a way to break up leveling for non-story mode based characters (especially new seasonal ones). I have a variety of ideas of how these can be improved (even adding them into War Plans if they get revamped) but the main point here is that these are outdated pieces of content whose original purpose has been superceded by the evolution of the game and require a major overhaul. Otherwise, they simply stick out like a sore thumb or red headed stepchild.
• Continuing Imbalance of Builds – Despite the revamp, not all builds are created (or redone) equally. From what I know, the truly OP builds are mostly those with some bug that wasn’t caught by QA. Even if that’s not the case, some builds/classes just got left in the dirt like the Necromancer (namely Minions). Outside of the multiplier problem, I think the odd conditional interaction between skills, items and other elements continue to plague the game. I don’t think there’s an easy solution especially when the game wants players to augment skills with subsystems. But it is painful to see a skill like Blood Surge not be used more often for whatever reason.
• Minion Necromancer – Oddly, of all the summoner classes, the Minion Necromancer to me seems like the saddest. Besides bugs, the main culprit that I think hurt Minion Necromancers early on was the immediate pre-nerfing of a unique that would’ve allowed Minion Necromancers to get up to 28 Minions (I think Skeletons). The excuse that was given was the typical “server issues” whereas Companion Druid with their army of fury critters and the hundreds of Ancestors for Barbarians are fine. Heck, even Rogue’s Shadow Clone proves to be better than the lowly Minion Necromancer. For me though, the real killer is the lack of customization for Necromancers. A while back, I tried out a Bone Skeleton Mage Necromancer that employed Bone Spear with the Helmet. While novel in concept, it wasn’t good. I still like the idea of being able to link my Necromancer skills to my minions. I think if Blizzard took a hard look at this concept, it would clearly differentiate how a Necromancer operates from other summoner builds. Like why can’t we have Bone Spear Skeleton Mages? Or Blood Surge Blood Golems? The potential is there but the real link is connecting a Necromancer’s inherit skills back to their minions to make them far more interesting. Not only does that open up the diversity to the types of Minion Necromancer, but it hopefully gives new life (pun partly intended) to them that currently does not exist.
• Evadeborn Meme – I know there’s a bugged version of this class/build but multiple seasons in a row where Evade is the only meta? I’ve been wanting to play a non-Evade Spiritborn for sometime but the class has been underperforming outside of the Evade builds, at least from what I’ve seen. I really wish that Blizzard had created an Amazon class and/or Monk rather than establishing an oddball class that fits nowhere. It was a lot of fun when it first came out but as we have learned, the first class of a DLC/expansion is going to be bugged and overpowered (purposefully). That doesn’t mean that the class should be in a bad state afterwards.
• Warlock – At this stage, as much as I’d love to try the Warlock, the visuals just cause me problems. I think the visuals are a bigger issue overall but I think pointing out that Warlocks are suffering as a result is the key takeaway here.
• Major Nerfed Paladins – After removing the Castle node, Paladins simply haven’t been the same. It’s sad given that this class was probably one thing new players wanted to experience since it’s a popular archetype in the realm of fantasy. It’s still viable but it won’t see the higher tiers that broken classes are experiencing. I don’t think this was intentional but I think the Castle fix should’ve waited until after Season 13 at least as a sales tool.
• Forgotten Souls Scarcity – I mentioned this as a pain point that isn’t a complete killer because having worth farming for is good. But it does inhibit a smoother crafting experience especially when GA tempers are affected by RNG. I think they just need to either adjust the numbers for the cost or add content that is target farmable for this precious currency.
• Meaningless Herb Nodes and the Alchemist – Mining nodes still are highly valuable in Helltides mostly due to the scarcity of Forgotten Souls, the high yield for Cinders and the occasional gem dust. But Herbs themselves have no place in the game in this season. Along with that the Alchemist serves no purpose since potion upgrades and Elixirs/Incense were removed. I don’t know if there’s plans to turn any of these things into something worthwhile but it’s clear that the ideas are antiquated and require a complete re-examination or ought to be completely removed from the game.
• War Plans Activity Tree Re-spec Cost – Not a complete deal breaker for me but it does force you to be absolutely sure about the paths you choose since re-speccing cost a ridiculous amount. Since they removed the cost for re-speccing a character, I have no idea why they added a cost for re-speccing the Activity Tree, especially when it’s already lean.
• No Account Wide War Plans Experience – This isn’t necessarily my own complaint. I think part of this issue is when you start up a new character and how having a completely unlocked War Plans might cause a new character from fully utilizing their War Plans. For instance, it makes no sense for characters below Torment and max level (not Paragon) to have Boss Lairs be unlocked and fully specc’d out. In that instance, the player would die as a level one. For me I think the current implementation is okay if the activity trees aren’t expanded upon. But I am really pulling for an increase in the number of nodes for the Activity Trees and expanding the activity types for War Plans. The way I would handle the situation is to prevent gaining full experience until the player enters Torment I on max level (if the user starts a new character). I think the hard part is determining a sweet spot for alt characters while not overwhelming them with fully unlocked trees that may cause them grief. But I think the situation is as trivial as some players are thinking, which is why I’m hesitant on making this a major issue.
• Loot Filter UI/UX – The Loot Filter does need some more work in terms of wording and a tutorial on how to use this thing. Some parts aren’t worded clearly not their intent and probably require tool tips on how each component is used (especially certain hide/show options). I think that the campaign should have introduced a quest line to help players learn how to learn the Loot Filter as opposed to hiding it as a feature. As silly as that may sound, I think Loot Filters end up becoming more for advanced players of this genre. But it’s one of those things that when you use one, you realize the high value and inherent worth in improving ones gaming experience. I can’t imagine how many players who aren’t used to ARPGs get confused because they don’t understand how their character and loot works.
• Still Beta Feeling – I honestly think this current S13 is nothing more than a live test server at this stage. There’s too many bugs and issues that ended up getting a hard deadline but still feel incomplete or broken. And I suppose that’s fine for a live service game but I think the game still needs a lot of polish to turn it to a B level (where it’s probably a B- level in my book)

The Downright Atrocious

• Visuals are really bad – If there’s one major complaint I have about the game is that the visuals are in a really bad state. One of the previous seasons addition for on death effects have made the updated content to feel downright terrible. I know they added a bunch of updates and the added difficulty. But these updates clash with the art style and the overall experience is god awful. But I place this issue under downright atrocious because I think the visual piece is going to be really hard to fix based on the art style. I think the art style is meant to be immersive and visceral but the way it’s implemented causes conflicts everywhere, whether it’s lag, FPS issues or unseeable ground effects. The game would be better serviced with these visuals using a slower pace. Otherwise, the current pacing, which is more on the level of a Torchlight Infinite, ends up hurting how the visuals work because you simply can’t see anything. You’d need to do more on adding opacity to skill effects, better highlighting of monsters and objects, improved pickup radius and better visual indicators that don’t clash with skills such as extreme colorization to indicate the type of damage being used. I think the latter part would be good if enemy effects could not overlap. Otherwise, it would simply be slop visually and not help the current situation.
• Item Pickup Sucks – As someone with various physical problems with my hands (carpal tunnel, two broken fingers, etc.), I think still being forced to click on small areas to grab items or interact with objects is horrifically painful. I maintain that the solution to item pick up is to convert the Loot Filter into a Loot Vacuum mode that can be enabled with a checkbox. While pets are the primary method for handling out of range currency types, I would prefer that a person could just run over the Loot and have it placed in their inventory. If you add a scrollbar to each inventory slot with a FAR larger space allotment, it would solve the bulk of the complaints for inventory management. This should be as bad of an issue as it is in this type of game especially when like games have already solved this QoL problem. And it isn’t a skill issue either; it really is a QoL problem.
  Likewise, the interaction with objects like Prisoners continue to be problematic. I know some of that was solved like doors but dungeon quests are particularly painful. Same thing with chests. I think these things should be auto opened or interacted based on distance. If players really want to feel the click, just provide a checkbox to enable clicking on objects. But I shouldn’t have to suffer physically because of wretched UI/UX.
• RNG upon RNG Progression – I will never stop fighting this issue with Blizzard’s core design philosophy. I feel that at a certain point, progression feels awful because of how RNG based almost every design decision ends up becoming. Crafting and War Plans were already inflicted with this form of punishment for no good reason. An example of this is Transfiguration. I was excited to see a version of Santification make its turn. But the outcomes for Transfiguration don’t feel as worthy of an RNG chase because of not allowing for the legendary power to be crafted. But the real issue is that finding a good base already is problematic especially due to the revamped Uniques (which I’ll talk about). Even when you get a solid item, you can still “brick” it. But why? I would prefer the currency to Transfigure to be super rare and a chase item rather than not having a more deterministic thing that I can craft upon something. The new system does work better than before but it’s still in a very rough phase. But I think the RNG dependency is what kills the game entirely at some point. Like I should have a clear path for how I can reach the end game not depending on sheer luck all the time.
• Mephisto Fight – I think only one person likes this fight in the world. But he enjoys pain and suffering. The real issue is that this fight is a dissertation on miscalculations in design vs genre. It’s basically a World of Warcraft version of a mythic raid boss fight where you’re forced to learn god awful mechanics and need go through multi-phases and start from scratch if you’re defeated. On top of that, the fight isn’t really a “challenge” but just a ton of crap thrown at you. Like the change of skills and the pull out view that is disorienting. Add one shots and this no longer becomes aspiring content but just a flat out “fuck you” from the vast majority of the player base, almost as reprehensible as the dead raid from Vessel of Hatred that ought to receive the proper treatment of being permanently deleted from the game. This fight was semi-okay for the campaign to do on easy mode. But that’s where it belongs along with the trash Lilith fight (and yes, I did beat her but only by outgearing her).
• One Shot Mechanics – In general, one shot mechanics are dogshit that makes everything one tries to build up for seem meaningless. Player damage should be gradual that break down the defenses that lead to conservative potion usage rather than sudden panic mode that occurs infrequently (like the shitty DoT scaling problems). The issue with one shot mechanics is that it’s a disruptive experience that most often induces confusion partly because of a lack of a combat log.  The other problem is that it’s impossible to build up any meaningful defense because of the dilution of defenses into the general “Toughness” notion and the equally obscure “resistances” category. Damage Reduction also provides almost no meaningful interaction against one shot mechanics. To me if I’m using a Shako and have 20% damage reduction, I should see 20% of my life still intact when I get hit by one of these so-called one shot mechanics. Otherwise, it’s a bill of goods that Blizzard is selling you.
• Multipliers – I think most people agree that the real core problem in Diablo 4 is the wholehearted embracing of multipliers. I think multipliers in this game are baneful where the mathematics can’t easily be controlled and it’s tough to see how everything works out because of out-of-control, nonsensical scaling. I have no easy solution to the multipliers problem but it’s something that makes the game hard to balance around and needs to receive a deep examination. The only multiplier that makes sense to me is a critical strike. But I think the multiplier used on that effect be simple in the math where the idea is that you’re hitting a vulnerable spot that instantly kills an enemy or gets close to taking that thing down.
• Damage Types – If Damage Types retained the Diablo 2 Rock – Paper – Scissors notion, it might sort of work. The real problem is that there’s a variety of damage types that don’t really mean much in the scheme of things. In fact, I would argue having these different types of damages hurt in that there’s not a lot of actual difference. Like what’s the difference between a Fire dot and Poison dot? They simply are dots with a different flag. Then you get even more confusing damage types like Vulnerable and Overpower. Part of the problem in conjunction with multipliers, one shot mechanics and defenses is that none of this is self evident. You pretty much have to understand a poorly conceived system that probably needs more overhauls, especially if someone wakes up and decides to remove most multipliers from the game. Again, I consider this a downright atrocious problem because the issue is deeply buried.
• On Death Effects – I probably don’t have as big of an issue with these as the majority of the players but I need to identify it as the culprit that sits under almost everything else listed here. The problem is that you cannot prepare for the on death effect that one shots you when it happens. You can’t anticipate how badly it would affect you outside of “well, it was your fault for standing around.” While I can applaud the updated elite/rare affixes, I think they still need to be balanced where defenses play a better role or that the visualizations improve. I think that Blizzard will have an impossible time in the near term finding a solution for the visualizations because of the art style. That part requires an entire graphics engine overhaul and you won’t see anything like that in the near future. So the only compensation is to lower the intensity of the damage these effects do or cause them to shut off the moment a mob that invokes the effect dies. Since the math is probably impossible for Blizzard to handle, the easiest, lowest hanging immediate fruit is to simply cut off the effect after the mob dies. There is no other elegant solution here without actual engine fixes.
• Bugs – Bugs were expected from a new expansion especially with this amount of refactoring for existing systems. But some are just so bad that they make the game unplayable. I think I would be a lot more forgiving towards Blizzard if the game had better overall leadership. There have been improvements and the expansion does show that there is a positive willingness to listen and change. I think that whatever we’re seeing is the remnant of damage from the revolving door for this game where each new major group coming in has a different idea of how to implement the game. So that vision whether it’s democratic, KPI driven or done through some bad apples have serious issues that are bleeding into the overall quality of the game.
• Performance – I’m separating out performance from bugs just because it deserves a category in itself. I noticed that the game degrades over time and I’m not the only person. Certain areas like elevations seem to cause incredible lag while a simple action like opening ones inventory in town triggers more lag. If you add all the other “Downright Atrocious” items listed here, it makes HC only seem like a masochist’s wet dream. Despite that, having a poorly performing “modern” game has no place when the old Blizzard motto was to make a game that works on old hardware. My gut tells me that the issue is partly network related and graphics related where the assets and various effects are badly intermixing and too many calculations are being done that a lot of machines can’t handle. Also, I’ve read that the game experiences a big memory leak and it’s been an ongoing issue for years now. I have a feeling that it’s unsolvable based on how the engine works and without a serious revamp to tone down graphics or reduce calculations to make things less taxing on the CPU and memory, you aren’t going to see any fix for this issue.
• Poor Teaching Experience – Something that occurred to me about how this game operates is that there’s really no tutorial mode to help players learn how to play the game. I think the campaign ends up hurting because the story ends up being a horribly gratuitous way for some writer to masturbate his/her writing fantasies to as opposed to using the campaign as a mode for aiding new players to existing, revamped and new systems. Like there’s no such thing as a base build that a new player can use to experience the game. I see a lot of new players on Twitch struggling because they have no idea how the game works, what skills work with what, understanding the abomination of a confusing, inexplicable damage type system, etc. The game would do much better by cutting down the campaign and using it as a tutorial mode for key mechanics in the game rather than an overdrawn exposition for someone’s bad taste in writing. I think moving forward, the campaign mode either should be cut down to only relevant parts to teach new players or existing players about these systems (i.e. the intro mode) or introduce a hand holding mode that gives gear and leads players to experience the game as it should. I feel a lot of players who don’t understand how an ARPG works probably end up quitting after the lengthy campaign, believing they beat the game but only learn of the game because of the overhype. But they never understand what makes the game reasonably fun, which is tragic because of how the systems can be pretty fun.

Final Thoughts

Again, the key thing here is that Lord of Hatred managed to really nail some of the core things people were begging for. There’s a very good base in terms of the new systems that can be expanded upon. I think many players can see the potential for the new foundation, which means that Blizzard did a reasonable job here. However, the really reprehensible areas are either unfixable or need a monstrous overhaul that prevent the game from reaching anything higher than a B level currently, especially at the level expected from a Blizzard game funded/owned by Microsoft. It shouldn’t be the case where independent competitors are pushing out better ideas.

The post Diablo 4 Lord of Hatred: The Good, the Bad and the Downright Atrocious appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

Cody Rhodes vs Drew McIntyre

After the red hot feud with CM Punk and once Cody won WM, I thought this could’ve been the big program. Drew is great as a heel. He’s doing the “real American Dream” and should keep that going for a while regardless of the opponent just because it’s a great little thing for him to focus on in his promos. Cody as the supposed main champion feels like a side character. I’ve stated that Cody pretty much is over because he’s got a great entrance and song. Once that music ends, it’s done for him. Match was forgettable to me. Nothing offensive nor truly memorable for both these guys. Drew not winning makes him look more like a chump because of the stipulation. Quite frankly, they should’ve let Drew win because Cody is really bland right now. Either way, the stipulation was pointless.

Tiffany Stratton vs Jade Cargill

This was the match I was most (morbidly) curious about since these two have some chemistry and probably gave each other their best matches. That said, this match was practically a squash match for Jade. They did some stupid backstage skit where Tiffany begged to continue (or bitched) and she’s just horribly unconvincing when she talks because she’s been placed in the role as a babyface but is awful at it. She’s far better off as a snooty athletic Barbie Doll type that pouts and lifts her nose haughtily at everyone.

At any rate, Jade dominated the bulk of this match. Tiffany sold and made Jade look great here. Tiffany works like a babyface but can’t coalesce her promos with her presentation. At least with Jade turning “heel”, she can bring together what she always should have been from the start: a domineering monster heel. She certainly doesn’t talk like a babyface and she can’t work like one. But Jade is best when she’s just tossing smaller opponents around. I’ve stated before that Jade is the female equivalent of Sid Vicious/Justice. Sid was awful as a babyface in the WWE (even if the crowd loved him) because he couldn’t cut a good babyface promo. And his best matches were all the squashes against jobbers.

Either way, Jade won in convincing fashion and got the title. Now, I am willing to bet that at some point Bianca will face her. Possibly Wrestlemania if they planned it all out for a major comeback. I think Charlotte could still have a singles match with Jade but at this stage, the main match will be Jade vs Bianca in singles. Bianca is better suited in a babyface role and they still need to resolve the story with Jade, Bianca and Naomi. At least, with Jade turning heel, Bianca can eventually return and admit that she was wrong and Naomi was right. So there’s a natural story there. Charlotte would be the interesting match to see if Charlotte can get something out of Jade but Charlotte has gone in a completely different direction in partnering with Alexis Bliss. The other match I couldn’t mind seeing is Becky vs Jade because I can buy a heel Jade beating a babyface Becky (not the other way around). At least, that would give Becky something to work with that’s different rather than trying to put over Lyra or that goof girl.

Dominik Mysterio vs Penta vs Rusev

This was the match of the night for me. I hate three ways of multi-person matches but Dominik is great. The stuff he and Rusev have been doing is fun. I’m still not convinced of Penta as he can still show some sloppiness. But there was only one moment that didn’t look great here. What I enjoy about Dominik matches is that they’re different. He’s adopted Eddie Guerrero’s Cheat, Steal and Lie tactics but it’s not the same thing each time. They did a clever spot where Dominik tried to get DQ’d by handing Rusev the chair to Rusev but since this was a three way, there was no DQ. In turn, Rusev got a sadistic look indicating “you fucked up!” So this is a case where the lack of rules in a three way actually made a LOT of sense for once. Also, when Rusev went to pin Penta at one point, Dominik rang the bell which caused confusion on Rusev’s part. I mean, this stuff is fun for me because they can get creative in terms of how Dominik plays this sneaky bastard and it really works. This is almost Wile E Coyote vs the Road Runner or Elmer Fudd vs Bugs Bunny but it’s different each time and makes you pay attention because you have something different to see each time. Lastly, it paints Dominik as this guy who’s been growing on his own (without Liv Morgan and the Judgment Day).

CM Punk vs Jey Uso

This was a guaranteed title change so that made this match have intrigue. I think it wouldn’t have mattered who would win here but in seeing the bigger picture, it made sense for Punk to get the victory. That said, this match wasn’t bad just no heat until the final moments for me. Jey isn’t an interesting wrestler to me so Punk doesn’t have a lot to work with here. Jey is the modern equivalent of the Junkyard Dog. Great entrance, over personality, talent ain’t there in the ring. And being compared to JYD isn’t a bad thing since he pretty much was the #2 most popular guy in the WWF behind Hogan back in the day. But JYD was limited (and had his vices) so you didn’t see him with a title. He was more around for the kids just like Jey and that’s fine.

Punk winning though gives Punk a final title run (assuming that’s what this will be) and he’s either going to put over Gunther or Bron Brekker for Wrestlemania. I think if they rush to have Bron challenge Punk, it’ll be too soon. That said, having Punk as the world title holder makes a lot of sense because whoever beats him is going to get a lot of credibility (and Punk should hold this at least until Wrestlemania).

Final Thoughts

The WWE is in a really odd position when it comes to the card because a lot of their plans seemed to have evaporated especially with Seth Rollins’ injury. Apparently, he’s going to be out for around 6 months which puts him after Wrestlemania in terms of making a comeback. I don’t know if Tiffany is really injured or just going to take a break/vacation soon. But the way that match against Jade looked made it seem as though she’s going to be off TV for a while and regroup. Cody continues to be the muted token champion but the real main event is now CM Punk. They did mention having a battle royal to choose John Cena’s final opponent. Given the way things work, I’m guessing either Gunther makes his return there to beat Cena and really push Gunther to the stratosphere, leading to either a CM Punk or Cody Rhodes Wrestlemania main event title match or Bron Brekker gets that spot. Gunther is the most logical choice if I were a betting person since he’s been off TV and could get mega heat for squashing Cena.

Dominik is quickly becoming the guy to watch. I’ve said the four next big people to be in the main event by next year are Gunther, Bron Brekker, Jacob Fatu and Dominik. Jacob apparently is out with an injury or sidelined so he’s going to wait another year to catch up. Bron could be that person but I think it’s too soon. That leaves Gunther and Dominik. Even if Dominik might not be the guy taken seriously at this stage, he might be more like the Rock where he suddenly becomes super over. The only thing is that Dominik doesn’t have size so he’s going to struggle at the top. But he has the psychology as seen with how he dealt with Rusev.

That said, if I were planning this out, I’d have Bron and Bronson Reed go after the tag titles and just squash everyone until Wrestlemania. With Seth gone, that does leave the door open for Brock Lesner to fill in the main leader role. But Brock doesn’t show up enough where it really is worth much. Gunther could be the guy that takes over for Seth but Gunther probably is best off on his own. I read the other day that Austin Theory was supposed to be another member but they’d have to change his character fast because he’s been too goofy and used as a jobber for a while. I could see Heyman rehabilitating Theory’s character in the group because he would fit in with this kind of young lions concept.

Not sure where they’re going with Jey Uso though. More than likely, we’ll see more of him and Roman with Jimmy getting alienated. Either that or Jimmy gets back with the OG Bloodline. However, is that just going to be the case of the sitcom that where the main characters never get out of their constant issue? Like the Bundy’s from Married with Children never finding money and happiness? If Roman were around more consistently, this could kind of work but Roman barely is around so there’s no real point of reforming the Bloodline if their day has passed. More than likely though, he’ll turn heel or go berserk and possibly blame Jimmy for not interfering (and he was there getting a cameo apparently).

Then what to do about Drew McIntyre? Poor guy is going to bounced between Cody and Punk. At least with Jacob, there could’ve been something different. But Cody doesn’t really bring out the best from people nor are they letting him for a person in that position. So he might be in limbo again unless suddenly he turns his attention to someone like Dominik.

At any rate, kinda meh overall. Not really feeling any of this.

The post WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event 11/01/2025 Review appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

Roman Reigns vs Bronson Reed

I like Roman Reigns more and more these days but I feel bad for the guy. I read how he mentioned his body feels terrible. And even if you make as much as he does, there’s nothing that can pure raw pain on a constant basis. The match was a nonsensical ECW crapfest type of street brawl, which meant whatever goes and allowed Heyman to help (over)book this thing. Typical brawling in the stands, followed by a literal garbage can and whatever junk was inside. I lost interest quickly especially when Bron Brekker came in for the aid for his partner. Then the Usos came in and it was a typical Bloodline clusterfuck except with Roman being a pseudo-face. I say pseudo-face because he behaves like a heel just like Bron Brekker is a pseudo-face. The only actual babyface in this thing was poor Jimmy, who’s effectively a 5th wheel.

At any rate, the ref was mostly paralyzed in this match to be anything except a gratuitous three count once Jey accidentally speared Roman which allowed him to be momentarily distracted for Bron to spear Jey. Then Bron pulled Roman so Bronson could Tsunami Roman for the big upset. I think this would have meant a lot more if there was zero outside interference. The important people remain those in the Bloodline and no matter how much they want to prop up Bronson, a win where there’s no rules means nothing because nothing makes sense and diminishes his effort. Also, the fact that the camera stayed on Roman and the Usos post-match demonstrated the actual important aspect in the story with Roman telling the Usos he didn’t want to see them until Christmas. So I guess Roman goes back home for a few months?

Stephanie Vaquer vs Tiffany Stratton

Ugh this was a mess. Tiffany isn’t a good wrestler/worker. I think she got nervous at the beginning and they were trying to go too fast. I’m guessing Stephanie tried to slow Tiffany down a little to recuperate. But there were some small things that looked awful because of the speed they were trying to maintain. I know people are super hyped on Stephanie Vaquer but I don’t see anything really special. The only move she does that’s special to me is the Devil’s Kiss because the people recognize what it is. The rest of her work is bleh to me because there’s no flow. This ended up being a spotfest which does nothing for me these days except bores me to tears. Stephanie won the women’s side of the Crown Jewel but I really don’t care.

John Cena vs AJ Styles

This was a last minute type of match with no build outside of Cena and Styles wanting to do it. Sadly, that was better than everything else in terms of hype for this PLE as a build. Obviously, this was the match of the night. It’s now acknowledged that Styles will retire next year so it was important for these two to get one final match together. Cena handed the announcer a nice note to really put Styles over. The first minute or so of the match was the only “real” wrestling we got to see on this entire PPV. It’s going to be a completely lost art once Cena, Styles, Punk etc. retire and leave the landscape of wrestling to the modern style of meaningless, story-less spotfests.

The match really was nothing more than an exhibition match between two legends doing their homage to people who helped their career. The early part (outside of the lock ups) was a little slow with AJ taking control. But once they started paying their homage, it woked the crowd up big time. I won’t go over every single move that was done but probably one of my favorite spots in the match was when the crowd called out 619, AJ got strung up on the 2nd ropes and Cena teased actually doing the 619 only to have AJ foil it with a simple clothesline. The crowd booed and Cena didn’t try it again but I like stuff like that. I mean Cena has been pulling out a lot of surprises, which now that they’ve got him going in the right direction is really what this retirement “tour” should have been from the beginning. Eventually, Cena paid two tributes to the Undertaker a goozle chokeslam and a Tombstone Piledriver with an FU/AA follow up for the pin. Both shook hands and raised each others’ arms out of respect.

One side note: I used to joke that AJ Styles only had finishers as his move set. This match almost was like that. But in this situation it actually worked. It’s a rare case where doing just finishers as the story made the match and the crowd worked with them. Very fun match.

Rhea Ripley and Iyo Sky vs Kabuki Warriors

I had been completely turned off by the god awful, cringe build. I haven’t enjoyed Asuka for a very long time. She was at her height when she first arrived in NXT and was different and had an aura. Kairi is too tiny and her only positive attribute is that she’s cute. Otherwise, she’s an accessory and adds nothing. I tried giving this a chance but got bored really fast.

Cody Rhodes vs Seth Rollins

Heyman actually ordered Bronson and Bron to stay out of this match and he too didn’t accompany Seth. But it was good in the sense that at least you knew it wouldn’t be overbooked like the first match. At this stage for Cody, the only positive thing I can say about him is his entrance. That’s all he really has anyone to me. I can’t stand his matches and don’t think he’s a good worker to be honest. There was a funny spot where Seth was being setup for some suplex thing then got dropped and rolled into the ref. I think he meant to roll to the outside but got really pissed at the ref and went to the turnbuckle to cool off. Eventually, he dropped back out to the outside to delay but I think that’s when he cooled off. Seth seems to be really strung up in these matches. Maybe he’s becoming a contemporary Macho Man Randy Savage.

Anyway, this was another boring spotfest. I just can’t get into either of these guys unless they’re wrestling someone better. Like Seth does great with Punk but he can’t carry a match on his own. I hated that Cody hit a top rope Crossroads but only got a 2. However, Seth did have a watch that he gave Cody, which apparently was placed on some table out in the open for no good reason and ended up using the watch on Cody when the ref took a bump from a jab in the belly. That allowed Seth to finish Cody off and win the men’s crown jewel. HHH would come out to gift Seth the crown jewel belt and ring after which Seth gave a brief, unremarkable speech and got to stand in front the crowd with Stephanie Vaquer by his side.

Final Thoughts

The only match worth catching was AJ vs Cena. The rest of the card felt like dribble. Seth winning was okay and made sense to a degree but I’m just convinced more and more that Cody is not the man. He’s a token prop for the WWE but his 2025 has been completely unremarkable. After beating Reigns, Cody had nothing. It was stupid showing him with the Rock drinking tequilla, having his balls kicked in by Cena, getting bitch slapped by that stupid rapper, then continuously getting embarrassed and having bland promos. Seth seems like the person they really want to position on top but he’s too hit and miss for me. Neither are really exciting nor great promos. They can execute a promo on a perfunctory basis but they don’t convince me to want to see them wrestle unless a better opponent is standing opposite of them.

The only potentially interesting thing to come out of this PLE was Stephanie and Seth standing side by side. The reason I mention this is because Seth seemed to treat Stephanie with respect in the ring. Since Becky is the real top female star in the WWE, I can see such a symbolic act causing consternation in her and that might lead down the line for a Becky vs Stephanie match. Truthfully, I don’t want to see that match because Stephanie simply can’t cut a promo to save her life. Becky is just leagues above virtually the entire women’s division when it comes to the promo and character (and being flat out interesting department).

What really sucks for me is the fact that they just went from AJ/Punk to Cody to that stupid bimbo Maxine Dupri is just maddening. I get that the WWE’s goal is to constantly make stars but there’s really no one for Becky to challenge her. The only person that has created any significant interest was Punk because they’re on the same level when it comes to promo work. You could see that both Punk and especially Becky were doing great stuff with Becky finally having someone that she could dig into and sink her teeth into something.

At any rate, wrestling ain’t that great right now. There’s a few rare bright spots here and there so I’ll take what I can get. But I’m also not wasting my time for things I don’t care about.

The post WWE Crown Jewel 2025 Review appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

The movie starts with the Lady Yang played by Lily Li Li-Li, along with her two daughters, Yang #8 (Kara Hui) and Yang #9 (Yeung Ching-Ching) reading a mysteriously worded prophecy. This prophecy sets the tone of what will happen to the rest of their family as the scene cuts to the court where General Pan Mei (Lam Hak-Ming) approaches the Queen (Leanne Lau Suet-Wah) to reveal that her brother had been killed by one of the Yangs. In turn, the Queen dismisses her servants as Pan Mei provides a plot to get rid of the Yang household by setting up a battle with the Mongols/Tartars.

From there, we get briefly (and I emphasize briefly) introduced to the Yang family (mostly the brothers) played by Lau Kar-Leung’s favorites around that period with Yang 1-7 (Wong Yu, Lau Kar-Wing, Mai Te-Lo, Hsiao Ho, Gordon Liu, Fu Sheng and finally Cheung Chin-Pang). The father of the Yangs isn’t credited from what I can tell but he barely did anything. Regardless, the Yangs and Mongols meet in an intense battle where the Yangs’ spears defeat the first wave. However, they are greeted by the masterminds behind the battle in Prince Yeh Li Lin (Wang Lung-Wei), Ying Kuei (Chu Tit-Wo) and of course the ruthless Pan Mei himself.

The furious Yangs go to assault the three leaders, who hide within a tent. As the Yang brothers approach the tent, an explosion goes off that injures them in a variety of ways. Yang #1’s left arm is badly damaged, Yang #2 hands are hurt and Yang #3 is blinded in terms of who receives the most severe injuries. Then a flood of mongols armed with a bizarre pole assault the Yang soldiers. Yang #1 weakly fights and is the first to perish as his spear is caught by one of the poles and he is unable to free himself, where the mongols stab him with swords. Yang #3 manages to join with Yang #5 but both separate to fight. Unfortunately, Yang #3 loses himself into the midst of the mongols but can’t distinguish their armor from his brothers and is tossed to the ground so that the army can trample him to death. Neither Yang #5 nor #6 can do anything except witness their brother be brutally smashed underfoot.

From there Yang #4 attempts to break the bizarre pole from his spear but is overwhelmed by the mongol forces. However, the Queen appears in the background to have him taken prisoner. Yang #2 does his best to fight back but is having problems holding his spear and is trapped by a pair of the pole weapons and crucified by axes to the ground. Yang #6 sees his brother is slowly is losing his mind. Finally, the father is cornered by Pan Mei and a variety of archers. The father refuses to give in and a flurry of arrows is shot out only to be intercepted by Yang #7’s body. A second round of arrows is shot and the father is hit by a few but keeps his family honor in smashing his forehead against the Yang post, for which Pan Mei declares victory.

Yang #5 comes to the area too late and gives a brief monologue explaining their family loyalty to his dead father and how their family had been betrayed. Then the only other free living brother left in Yang #6 comes to see the carnage. But it’s clear that his mind is gone and a new wave from the Mongolian army rush to try and capture them.

The scene changes back to the Yang household where the mother continues to ponder the meaning behind the prophecy. Yang #8 tries to instill confidence about their family’s imminent victory but has a look of concern while her younger brash sister brags about their family’s fighting prowess. This establishes Yang #8’s more clear headed persona. Eventually, Yang #6 returns home to a brief celebration. However, the mother instantly realizes something is wrong as he is by himself and they question where the rest of the family is. Fu Sheng delivers a great performance here in illustrating the events in an exaggerated manner but once he names his father as part of the losses, the entire family bow on their knees, including Yang #6 where the mother now understands the meaning of the prophecy regarding how “6 returns.”

At Pan Mei’s camp, both the Prince and Ying visit in secrecy to discuss the situation, realizing that something is amiss. Pan Mei reveals that not everyone was slaughtered from the Yang family at the battle, which angers Ying since it prohibits the mongols’ next set of plans. However, they suspect that possibly lady Yang herself might have a clue to the missing but remaining Yangs and he goes to pay her a visit. In the meantime, Yang #6 is trying to recover his sanity with the mother’s help, which causes him to break whenever there’s an outside disturbance. They’re forced to secure Yang #6 to the backroom to confront Pan Mei, who tries to order the guards to search the household. The lady Yang plays politics with Pan Mei, using her position with the court and insisting that the rest of her family had perished in battle to prevent the soldiers from searching their household. However, Pan Mei remains suspicious but leaves them unmolested for the time being.

In turn, Yang #5 manages to survive but stumbles across a hunter’s den where he finds some food and an axe to try and break the still attached pole weapon on his spear. The owner returns and they briefly engage in a fight until they realize neither are the enemy. Then the hunter (played by the director himself) talks about Pan Mei being a power hungry snake and advises Yang #5 to proceed with caution. Yet the mongol army are still tracking him and Yang #5 in his hatred of Pan Mei and the mongols attempts to assault them. But the hunter shoves Yang #5 into a tunnel while defending him. A major fight breaks out only for the hunter to sacrifice himself before the mongols can follow Yang #5 into the secret tunnel.

Eventually, Yang #5 rolls free from the tunnel and learns of the hunter’s sacrifice in discovering the hunter’s fur coat caught in the tunnel trap. He then takes the hunter’s advice to be smarter about the situation, cuts off the spear head of his weapon then finds a monastery. In contrast, Yang #6 is slowly attempting to mend his mind but his PTSD gets the better of him where his mother knows that the best option is to allow him to fight to get it out of his system. After having his sense clubbed, Yang #6 calms down and breaks down. At the monastery, Yang #5 decides he wishes to become a monk. He’s denied due to being an outsider and is respected once his spear (now a staff) shows his identity. Instead, he shaves his own head and jams the lit incense on his head to resemble a monk before passing out from the pain.

Another scene with Yang #6 experiencing PTSD occurs where his sisters and mother are concerned over his insanity which would prevent him from clearly testifying in court. At the monastery, Yang #5 also has nightmares and finds life as a monk hard. The monks want to dismiss Yang #5 but he wishes to stay and become a guardian monk. He gets into a philosophical argument with one of the trainers about dealing with wolves. The monks believe that removing a wolf’s teeth will render the wolf harmless while Yang #5 states that the wolves would regroup later on and still pose a threat. These opposite viewpoints demonstrate that Yang #5 is still violent and that his training has instilled into him a killer instinct that further proves why he can’t stay with them. The abbot though does find Yang #5’s viewpoint reasonable though for strategy but believes that Yang #5 needs to start from scratch to understand the monks’ (Buddhist) philosophy of preserving life.

A tremendous training scene occurs with Yang #5 trying to remain calm in a cave with water pouring on his head. He becomes impatient and practices against the garden, which has a small pond and eight stones that he hops around. The other temple abbot observes in admiration but knows that Yang #5 is still unable to change and tells him he needs to leave. However, Yang #5 refuses again which convinces the other abbot to visit the Yang family. During a meeting with the family, the abbot gets into a small fight with Yang #8 after requesting that the lady Yang herself cook him a bowl of vegetables, which insults the daughter’s family pride. However, the lady Yang is much smarter and takes the abbot in to have a conversation. Eventually, Yang #6 rolls in an tries to fight the abbot but is held back as the abbot mentions that he would almost be a match if not for his mental state to his 5th brother. They calm Yang #6 enough so that lady Yang can figure out where Yang #5 is hiding and lets the abbot leave.

Afterwards, disguised mongol troops trap the abbot and try to gain information from him. However, he takes an arrow shot into his leg and plugs the tip to his throat before they can glean anything from him. The three mongol leaders continue to plot, knowing that the abbot provided some sort of hint of the 5th Yang’s location to the rest of the Yang household. In turn, lady Yang has 8th daughter to locate the 5th Yang with a jade pendant as she is more rational than her younger sister. From there at night, the Yang #8 hides in a wicker basket disguised as a stinky pile of trash to be thrown out to prevent additional suspicion by the court soldiers. She’s taken to a hidden spot to ride off on a horse while the mongol spies in town catch her taking off.

Back at the temple, the other monks mourn for the dead abbot. Yang #5 uncovers what happened in full, including how the abbot went on his behalf to inform his family of where he is. That leads to a fight with one of the practice wolves as he wants to get revenge. Using the monks’ technique, Yang #5 beats the abbot’s practice wolf in breaking the mechanical teeth, for which he receives high praise.

Then at a village en route to the temple, Yang #8 makes a stopover, encountering a Yang loyalist who bears the Golden Sword of the Yangs. Thinking that this is another spy, Yang #8 get into a fight with the loyalist and a few of his helpers, while the Yang loyalist accuses her of being a thief in spotting the jade on her person. Yang #8 subdues the group but reveals her identity for which the others show their respect to her family’s name. Lead upstairs, Yang #8 learns of how the loyalist recovered the Golden Sword and her own quest to find her brother. Just then Pan Mei and the other mongols invade the inn for which Yang #8 wishes to fight but is told to hide so that the innkeeper and staff can distract them.

Later at night, Yang #8 makes an attempt to escape from the now heavily guarded inn but is overwhelmed and held hostage while the loyalist is mortally injured but manages to grab the jade to take to her brother at the temple. He manages to get to the temple and show the jade which makes him realize that he can no longer stay because of his sister’s endangerment. However, the abbot won’t immediately allow him to leave and gives Yang #5 a final test where Yang #5 best the abbot and is given the red sash as a sign of respect.

Yang #5 travels to the small town with a wagon cart loaded with bamboo poles. He confronts some of the mongols and defies their specialized weapons since they can’t as easily grip a staff compared to the spearhead. Next, he enters the inn itself where a pyramid of coffins are stacked up and he goes to determine which one contains his sister. Each one has a small trap laid where some of the mongols hide. Eventually, he finds his sister, who is gagged, tied up and heavily injured but still alive. A heavy fight breaks out where it’s just the two of them against near impossible odds. Then the monks from the temple burst in to help out. Using their technique of teeth removal, the monks smash the mouths of the mongols in a rather gory assault but leave them practically helpless. Yang #5 asks why the monks are helping out and the abbot replies that they’re repelling the wolves (mongols).

Eventually, the bulk of the mongol forces retreat, leaving only the three leaders to confront the vengeful Yangs. Ying guts is smashed in with the golden sword, the Prince is handily dispensed and the cowardly Pan Mei has his cheek ripped off then is launched headfirst into a coffin. The abbot abstains from participating in the carnage but understands what the Yangs must do here. However, Yang #5 goes off on his own into the wild and the abbot tells Yang #8 that he won’t be returning to the monastery, telling her that “the world is his home.” A repeat of the first introduction of the Yang brothers show each one with the last image of Fu Sheng to pay homage to the deceased actor is the final scene while mournful music plays.

This movie has a profound sadness multiplied by Fu Sheng’s demise. It’s a bit of an unusual movie for Lau Kar-Leung because around this period, his movies tended to be more uplifting, less vengeful and with a message behind the kung fu. With Fu Sheng’s death, I had to wonder whether or not or how much of the original script had been altered to make up for his passing. Obviously, after the abbot departs the Yang household, the movie shifts awkwardly because Yang #6 simply disappears from the remaining movie. At least from what I’ve read, he was supposed to be a major part in the final act. Instead, apparently Kara Hui substituted for the major final fight scene.

Beyond that, the other point of contention I have with this movie is the disappearance of Yang #4 where he’s taken prisoner never to be heard from again (along with the queen). At least from the tidbits I’ve read about the actual story, Yang #4 does get captured and I think even has an affair with the queen. So if anything at least when it comes to the battle itself, I think they were trying to replicate the story to a degree.

Pace-wise, the movie has two paces: extremely slow or extremely rapid. I suppose part of that is to mimic the state of both surviving Yangs in their predicament in dealing with the loss of their family members. But several of the fight scenes are pretty incredible. I really enjoy the opening fight scene the most because it has a certain level of intensity. The music, the chaos of the seven brothers showing off their skills with their spears and the massive mongol army. It does feel more like a video taped play because there’s not a lot of scenery while the fights are heavily choreographed. But it’s still pretty fun along with the fight with the hunter and the mongol army.

I hated most of the final fight though especially once the monks stepped in. The visual gag of the missing teeth is just nasty to me. I tend to avoid most of that part until it’s down to the three leaders. But the final three leaders’ demise is quite emotional, possibly because of Fu Sheng’s death. But you’re very eager for the Yangs to get their revenge especially against the despicable Pan Mei. He’s not an impressive kung fu specimen like almost everyone else in the movie but a dirty political rat. So his cheek gets peeled off by the Golden Sword and him launching head first into the coffin felt like a good measure of revenge.

The other part I heavily disliked is poor Yang #5’s self-evisceration with the incense. That part is brutal to watch. It’s just long and prolonged agony. I get that part of it was to quell a chunk of his inner sorrow, guilt and hostility but it just lasted too long and doesn’t add a lot to the movie.

In terms of plot, one thing I must remark is that given the way the Yangs were injured, I almost thought that this movie could have turned into another Crippled Avengers tale where each Yang would have to learn a specific form of kung fu to overcome their injuries to fight the mongol army. Unfortunately, outside of Yang 5 & 6, the rest of the brothers barely got any screen time and even less lines (maybe only Yang #3 got anything). We know almost nothing about these other characters except that they looked cool with their weapons.

For me this was the movie that made me fall in love with Kara Hui. She’s at her peak in terms of cuteness to me. I love two of her outfits and she just looks super sexy. If Fu Sheng had survived, I don’t know what that would have done to her role here. I think her capture plays such a crucial motivator since it forces Yang #5 to rescue her. Would Yang #6 have gone out too? And what about Yang #9? So these characters that disappeared at some point make this movie jarring.

Finally, even though I love Kara Hui the most here, the obvious stand out actor is Fu Sheng. I love his expressions especially when he’s retelling the demise of the Yang family. Here, Fu Sheng plays a very serious character with severe PTSD and he flips between a madman to a traumatized depressed person that make me miss him.

At any rate, this is an absolute must for any Shaw Brothers’ fan. I really would like to know what the original plans/script was if Fu Sheng hadn’t died though in full. There’s just a lot of missing bits.

The post Shaw Brothers The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter Review appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.