|
This month's items are the Superior Form and the Gift of the Gods.
 Funny Story...
I was in the middle of typing this and after three hours of reviews with a semi-educational section devoted to the Gift of the God item, it was eaten by the internet. This review may be shorter than usual because of that. This intro is because of that, so no snap judgement and all that. So let's jump into it! September 2007 Critique redux!
Skin Deep
Ever since the zombie and Zurg skins came out, the people of Gaia demanded more skins. Distribution meantions were suggested ranging from special events to even buying them from a plastic surgery. Well, this item is the answer to those requests, though it might not the last of items similar to this to come out.
The default skin is advertised as Magma Skin. Your skin turns into something similar to the Human Torch, only with black areas similar to sun spots. Throw on the Fire wig from the Elemental Hair, and you have yourself a very complete look. If you have any other hair that isn't orange, red, or blond, you'll want to invest in said color as fast as you can. The interesting thing part of the skin is the fact that it has no underwear. That doesn't mean you can't wear clothes with it, but why would you want to? You just look that awesome without clothes on with this skin!
Platinum Skin gives your avatar a metalic finish similar to Collosus from X-Men. This skin matches rather nicely with some of the robotic parts already out on the market. You can even match it rather nicely with the spikey gold hair! However, that seems to be the the flaw with this skin: you can only match it with sci-fi and robotic parts for the most part.
Joint Puppet Parts gives you a skin of a toy puppet. Throw on the Water Meat eyes, and you can create yourself a nice little doll to walk around Gaia. Or you can go the route Chuckie did before he went all soft in his recent slasher flicks. Be careful what hair you pick with this skin, however, as it has a tendency to not like wigs. Why? I don't know. I'm expecting a lot of cosplaying with Pinnochio with this skin, especially since it looks like unfinished wood.
Dead Doll is a skin that will satisfy any girl wanting to dress up like Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas. You're given a patch-work of different skin tones accented with stitches. There are a few parts that probably need some tighter stitching like the foreground arm's shoulder, but those can be easily covered up by any piece of clothing. However, given how this skin looks and what it is in tribute to, you'll be more inclined to use the Gothic sets of clothing.
Dragon Scale gives you... well, dragon scales. Unfortunately, they do not match with the Blue Dragon Tail that was released as part of a sponser promotion. Given their aesthetic design, however, that doesn't really matter. You will probably use the skin as an alternative to leggings if you own a complete set of the Mythrill armor. The legs alone look like chain mail, so it's not a complete loss. If you could go bald, I would recommend to do so. Other than that, throw on the Crimsom Cross eyes and try to cosplay like Mystique from X-Men.
Feline Skin is the answer to all those furry patitions out there. However, it only matches with one set of animal parts: the Leo set from the recently released Western Zodiac. Every other piece of animal costume doesn't match it at all. The closest thing that can is the Puppy Mask, but even that is a stretch. The cool thing about this skin, and the others, is that the tattoo you throw on could easily beocome a special marking for whatever speice you are running around as. But other than that, you can unleash your inner furry with this skin.
Overall, the skins offered in the item are pretty nice. They are so flexible with clothing that you can probably wear just about anything outside of what I meantioned above. My only problem with this is that there will be a lot more skin requests and more skin designs in the future. We may see another Elemental Hair/Mythic Hair scenario in the future only involving skins. But until that day comes around, there is no real reason why not to invest in this item. You have a different skin that appeals to pretty much anybody or any mood!
Ladies First, Men Second
If you didn't see the counterpart of the Gift of the Goddess coming out from the day they came out, you clearly don't know how these items work in Gaia. And clearly, the men of the cosmos don't like being second to the women of the pantheon of other-worldly powers that control our lives. In any event, expect to be educated a little bit with the introduction of each God.
The default god is Anubis. He is the Eygptian God of the Underworld and judge of souls by weighing them against a feather of Ma'at. He pretty much determins if you are worth letting into paradise or having your soul turned into a star. His gifts to Gaia are his mask, his belt, and his precious scales. (Boy, is that a mistake.)
If you need a reason to invest in even just the bottom wrap of the Egyptian set of clothing, this is it. Much like his female counterpart, this set sufferes from being too strong in theme. You can probably get away with using the Anubis mask as part of some cult group, and I was able to use the belt as a form of a royal decoration. But the scales? Not very likely. The design of the items individually are really beautiful, but they are best used in tandum with something in their color pallet or among each other and similar clothing like them.
The Monkey King of Chinese folklore is the next God to grace Gaia with gifts, though he isn't technically a god. This shape-shifting trickster has a very interesting story of being born as a half-human, half-monkey thing when the world was created but got in trouble with the Buddhist powers that be due to his love of tricking people with his ability to turn into pretty much anything in both heaven and earth. His gifts for us Gaians are his head gear and staff.
The set itself looks nothing like the art of the Monkey King you can look up on Wikipedia. That is because it suffers from the fact it had to be adjusted for our avatars' head size. The circlet looks great by itself, but it's twice the size it would be normally. The feathers in the crown look more like shreaded rope, yet still retain the Lemur color scheme. The crown itself is rather dinky compared to some of the art they could have based it off of. The only thing that transfered well was the staff, which can be matched with just about any martial arts or Asian inspired outfit available. Unfortunately, it is still your standard hand-held weapon, complete with duel equiping options.
Hades is the next God to visit Gaia, although there are some arguments as to if Hades is a god or a place in the underworld. In our case, this is the brother of Zeus and the God of War himself known once as Aries. His gifts to Gaia are his helment, his pet dog, and apparently a staff I didn't know he had.
The overall set could be appreciated without the scepter, a probably unneeded addition to the gifts. The Helmet of Hades, also known as the Cap of Invisibility, has been appropriated by and loaned out to several people before, so I wouldn't consider it a gift if I were you. It's a beautiful design given how it actually has been represented in classic Greek art. It's probably the darkest helment those on the Dark Side could ask for! Cerbreus makes a very interesting appearance here in Gaia as well. You would expect a giant three-headed dog to be standing with your avatar, but instead you get the spirit of the beast looming over you in a menacing growl worthy of the position alone! The scpeter? From what I understand, it is suppose to be the Key to Hades (the place). More the fool Hades is, trusting us with the key to his inner scantum, but it does give the Demonic Pitchfork a run for its money to some degree.
Thor and his mighty hammer are up next in the line. Here is the God of Thunder of the Norse and slayer of giants. The red-haired, bearded god that has a built most body builders can actually get to. And the odd thing about him is this supposively only possession is among three of his gifts to us.
This set can arguebly be called the light side to Hades's darkness, which is true to some point. But the Thor mthos doesn't say anything about a belt or a helment. Just his hammer, which he dawns onto us as another weapon for Gaia's ever-growing arsenal of arms. Then again, very few myths on Thor survived time, so chances are I'm not lookin in the right places. In any event, the set is a very nice addition to the Light Side and hammer-lovers alike. The one piece that may be difficult to wear for some would have to be the Megingjord. This is Thor's belt of strength, apparently, which gives anyone who wears it the ability to lift the hammer. But we all know that, being an anime site, we all can do that without some stinking belt if we just naturally posses the hammer by itslef. Just look at Buttercup from Powerpuff Girls Z! It's too bad we don't have any Norse themed clothing, because matching that much white just seems impossible!
Last, and probably least in some books, is the Christian God. He's not represented. Instead, He breaks the rules of the Gift of the Gods and gives us Adam's leaf and Eve's leaf bra used ever so often in art that doesn't want to show those "naughty bits" of the first man and woman.
Needless to say, the set looks rediculous on men, who don't need the leaf bra. And to be perfectly blunt about it, I've been asking for this pair of items for a while now. I'm glad my idea finally got made, even though I can't take credit for it due to how many other people out there probably wanted it as well. This is one of the few sets that you don't need clothing to wear, so I won't even go into it.
The item overall is a nice counter to the Gift of the Goddess and features some of the same regions of the world as far as who to pick from. Though I do question some of the choices of the Gods selected, namely the absense of Buddah in his more popular form and a male Hindi God to counter the Durga gifts, the set does offer something new to the playing feild, but not by much.
Still on Track But Not by Much
While this month's selection is pretty much appealing to the masses as far as I can see, one has to wonder why they released two items that continue to open more and more counterparts to be made. You have the skins which will ultimately be added on to with other options, some of which I don't even know where to start to imagine what they are. You have the Gift of the Gods, which could be seen as making the God and Goddess balance complete finally despite the absense of other iconic Gods and Goddesses.
But the fact they released two items that were requested for quite some time now is a true sign they are listening to us, if only to get item ideas. That said, I joined the Item Creation Contest! Here's hoping all this critiquing of what makes a good item helps me win!
 Zeek Slider · Sun Sep 16, 2007 @ 03:36am · 2 Comments |
