DICE Volume 4: The Phantom Knight (DVD) - Anime Reviews


	Number of Episodes 4 Language Options English Released by Bandai Entertainment Extras - DICE Game Promo
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DICE Volume 4: The Phantom Knight (DVD)

The F-99 crew’s adventures take them far and wide once again, battling injustice and helping those in need. First, they must recover a top-secret device from a crash at the bottom of the sea, but the mission takes a very dangerous turn, when several team members are trapped underwater!

The last disc of DICE was really hard to get through, here’s hoping that they manage to get back on their feet with this episode.

Episode 15: Terror Under The Sea

F-99 is called in to salvage an unmanned shuttle that was carrying a prototype drive. The circumstances of the shuttle’s downing are suspicious, but not apparently dangerous; however, many members of the planet’s command staff have come out to personally watch the mission and are unhappy about the age of the team. Due to the crash site being underwater, Marco’s mono-crawler is retrofitted and sent to raise the ship. He quickly finds the wreck and is able to raise it, however on board F-99 they discover that the cargo is not there, so Marco is ordered to search for it. He’s looking for it, but he and his ship are suddenly flipped over and his mono-crawler is knocked out of commission. The command staff is furious and is getting ready to leave, but Jet stops them, and nearly gets into a fist fight with the commanding officer until the Captain stops him. One of the lieutenants admits that the object in question isn’t a weapon, but rather an absolute-zero missile intended to attack a neighbor. The Captain turns to chastise his charge, but she reveals herself to be a spy for the other nation and she has set the missile to detonate on this planet (which will freeze all the oceans).

The commanding officer is now forced to cooperate, and he reveals technical information about the weapon so that members of DICE can actually track it. Robert deploys in his hover-terra, and the crew finally hears from Marco who is able to continue, but his mono-crawler cannot raise easily due to the damage (certainly not before the missile is set to explode). The pair manage to track the missile but it is being dragged around by a giant squid, so they fight it and recover the weapon. Unfortunately, they took too long in recovering the weapon and as such they no longer have enough time to disarm it. Sam explains that the weapon is two-part –

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the warhead that produces the zero-temperature affect and the amplifier that increases the affect over a large area, so he suggests that they separate them. Marco cannot resurface in time to be recovered, so he’s going to dig into the earth and try and escape the explosion that way. After the missile detonates, a giant iceberg is formed but the crew of F-99 cannot find Marco… but after a few moments, his mono-crawler digs through the iceberg and rejoins the crew.

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Episode 16: Miss Lily’s Memories

Jet and Robert are out with a few members of the DICE crew at a baseball game when Jet gets into a bit of an argument with an elderly lady about a hotdog and ends up making a scene. As a result, the pair end up drawing cleaning duties on board F-99. The Captain offers the pair a reprieve, if they take this mission, their punishment is cancelled. The mission is to escort a traveler to a distant planet, and they quickly agree for this milk run… until they discover that the passenger is the lady that Jet got into an argument with. She introduces herself as Miss Lily and quickly takes the boys as porters on her shopping spree. Lily is very open and giving with her money and not only buys for herself, she ends up outfitting the duo as well.

The next day, the trio heads out towards their destination but they appear to be followed the entire time and when they reach the planet, they have a large gang of people waiting for them to arrive. Lily tells Jet that she’s a former boss of a crime syndicate and that her former gang is currently battling with the gang from this planet; but she’s not here on business, she’s here to find a former lover that she really wants to see. Jet seems reticent to proceed, but she pushes him out of the way, takes control of moto-raptor and drives them past the gang. Making it to their destination, Lily is extremely happy to see her former lover (as he is) but the gang has followed them and the leader of the gang is actually his son. Jet and Robert take positions to defend against the gang but they pull out their trump card, a giant stilted tank. The pair continually evade the tank, but their counterattacks seem to have little effect on the monster; Lily starts to get annoyed and throws rocks at the heads of the pair and yells at them to wake up. One of the rocks ricochets off Jet’s head and into the barrel of the tank, blowing it up when it tries to fire. So the pair weren’t really needed this mission at all, and Lily decides to stay with her lover rather than return home.

Episode 17: Fugitive Android

The android Lianne, has successfully broken into a data storage facility and stolen some unspecified technical data. Although police and security converged on the assailant, they were unable to catch her. Overlooking the entire incident is the Phantom Knight, who seems upset at the turn of events. With this theft, F-99 is called in immediately and they are asked to find Lianne and recover the information stolen. Considering the amount of urgency for this mission, everyone is deployed immediately and the team quickly learns some important facts – the android is a former service android specializing in the care of a specific flower, but has since been declared obsolete and decommissioned. The team quickly sets up a cordon to try and find her, and surprisingly Robert and Jet aren’t the first to find her… the Captain from a competing DICE team does. As everyone converges on her, the Phantom Knight tries to take her (and Lianne definitely wants to go with him), but the numbers make it impossible to get her (with everyone facing off against the Phantom Knight, she slips away). Both teams return to their respective ships but contact headquarters for instructions on how to proceed; seeing as both teams were hired independently to search for the stolen data.

While F-99 waits for assistance, a group of androids riding dino-breakers has converged on Lianne’s hiding place. Needing help, she hijacks the air-waves and sends out a coded signal for help. Puffy is able to decode the message and learns her position, despite being ordered to wait Jet heads out for a confrontation with the Phantom Knight. Tak is left with no options rather than deploy the entire team to try and recover Lianne and possibly stop the Phantom Knight. Their quick response allows Sam to get the android, but as everyone intends to stop the Phantom Knight, the police arrive en masse to prevent any battle. With the police pointing weapons, Lianne breaks free from Sam and runs towards the Phantom Knight; but when she refuses to stop, the police open fire. The Phantom Knight rushes to her falling body, takes her into the car, and makes a break for it. We learn through a series of flashbacks that he saved her from the scrap-heap, and she felt that he was her new master and wanted to help him in any way. Which included stealing the information that he was planning on stealing himself. Despite the loss of Lianne, Sam was clever enough to make a copy of the stolen data and Tak decides to take a look at it – it’s data containing a series of missions that DICE has completed around the galaxy, but the team cannot make sense of the information supplied with it.

Episode 18: Trusting The Enemy

Captain Spike is in the midst of a rescue with a group of civilians being brought off of a transport under attack. The Captain is drawing the attackers away while his team is completing the evacuation. Despite his evasive tactics, Spike cannot evade all of the fire and his dino-breaker is forced to land on the planet. DICE has been unable to gain permission to S&R the downed pilot from the inhabitants. F-99 returns to the planet from Episode 15, and speaks with the captive spy Sheila. She has been tortured to give up information, but she treats the presence of the DICE team as nothing more than another attempt to give up information. Jet’s impetuous nature takes over and he breaks her out of prison with Captain Tak. Sheila’s home planet is the site of Spike’s crash and they ask her for information about the crash-landing area, she can only tell them that the area in question is one of the more dangerous islands.

The S&R team (Jet, Tak, and Sally) gets ready to head out and Sheila asks to be included, the Tak does not object. The island is a rather dangerous one, with many larger dinosaurs roaming around so no one notices when Sheila slips away to contact her people. Jet saves her from a large predator once he notices that she’s missing, but cannot do anything to stop the swarm of soldiers especially once he’s surrounded and Tak’s already been taken prisoner. Sally has managed to evade her pursuers up to a point, but once she’s cornered, Spike jumps in to save her. He explains that his dino-breaker has sustained some damage and cannot take off to escape the atmosphere, but it still can hover and fight if necessary. Sheila’s commanding officer orders their dino-breakers taken back with them and researched so that they can produce their own, and also orders the execution of the prisoners Jet and Tak. Sheila cannot believe the order, especially considering how nice Jet has been to her. Spike manages infiltrate the base and free both Tak and Jet, but the pair need to recover their suits and dino-breakers. So they start heading towards the storage area where they are stashed, but the commanding officer is there with reinforcements… things look bleak until Sheila betrays her CO and gives Tak and Jet their communicators so they can transform. Now the entire group makes a run for it, but Sheila decides to stay behind, saying that she cannot leave her home. Jet is upset and worried for her, but understands.

This volume of DICE was a vast improvement over the last one; lessen the drama and increase the action. Much better.

- Tazman

(January 22, 2006)

"Enough with that already, you're like a dog with a bone."

"Tell me about it. I'll be in the basement."

"Doing what?"

"WHAT DO YOU THINK?"

- Lois and Brian (Family Guy)


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