Genre: JRPG

Format: Playstation 2

Release: July 2008 (Japan) December 2008 (North America) March 2009 (Europe)

Grab the Remote

Persona 3 FES was such a meaningful experience for me for a few reasons. The main reason is that it was the first JRPG that captured my interest. It had such a dark atmosphere and the main objective of the game wasn’t in stat building but in establishing and improving Social Links. Building relationships of your own free will and having those relationships help increase your power as time goes on was a revolutionary concept to me. Another reason has a lot to do with the length of the game. It took me roughly 70 hours to complete one playthrough and that is the longest it has taken me to complete any game.

After I came home from college I found the game sitting waiting for me. I instantly opened up the package and was disappointed to find that my Play.com UK exclusive Persona 4 t-shirt had not yet arrived. In spite of this, I was glad to see it still came with a nice extra, which was a CD soundtrack for the game. Despite my excitement, I admit I had my doubts about Persona 4 even when I was reading the instruction booklet and looking at the game case. The things I read about it beforehand weren’t encouraging. Amidst this doubt, I still found I really wanted to play it. The game started up and I was treated to possibly the best game introduction I’ve came across. Pursuing My True Self had quite an upbeat feel to it. Despite the upbeat feel, the lyrics capture the mood of the song and the video playing during it very well. The second introduction, Reach Out to the Truth, is an instrumental version of the battle theme in the game which shows you some gameplay, and it’s quite appropriate for getting you pumped up and ready to kick some Shadow arse.

Turn On The TV

One thing I noticed straight away was the change in atmosphere from Persona 3. This game has a much brighter art style and the atmosphere isn’t so chilling. I had plenty of time to take note of this fact because the intro itself is roughly 2.5 hours long! It beats the length of P3′s intro by a long shot. Anyway, when you finally get into the game, you accidentally end up in a TV world, and as you would expect from P3, you summon your Persona for the first time and fight off a Shadow. The bosses this time around are different. In Persona 4 the Shadow bosses are Shadows that reflect the darkest parts of a person’s soul, and this is a more interesting idea. I felt like I was fighting something rather than some faceless enemy that I didn’t know the intentions of.

When a Shadow boss is defeated it transforms into a Persona for the person it originated from. Why is this happening? It turns out that someone is throwing people into the TV World with the possible intent of letting them die at the hands of the Shadows or letting their own Shadow consume them from within. Just who is doing such a horrible thing and why are they doing it? That’s what you and your friends need to find out! So as you progress through the game you gather more friends through rescuing them and they join your group. The cast is quite typical, but they are still lovable. Yousuke (or as I like to call him, Brosuke) is the joker of the group, Chie is the popular “straight-man”, Yukiko is the pretty princess, Kanji is the brawler, Rise is the bubbly girl, Naoto is the aloof intellectual and Teddie is the mascot.

Change the Channel

As for the gameplay I noticed it had quite a large change. Now you can control each character if you wish as well as letting them decide their own actions. While useful, you’re better off using it just for boss battles so that you can get through the game a little quicker. Most of the time the characters will make the right decision about attacks. Another thing I noticed was the absence of multiple physical attack types. Now physical attacks are all in the same attack group, Physical Attacks. I guess that makes things easier but I like being able to select different weapons and the Main Character only gets to use swords this time around. Oh well. Pretty much everything else is the same in terms of gameplay.

In some ways the cast in general is better than Persona 3. They have a more diverse range of emotions and they don’t sound as robotic. This isn’t to say the cast of Persona 3 was bad or the actors did a poor job. I just think the script this time allowed for better interactions between the characters. Also, Nanako is adorable. Rise is hot…but anyway, um, nevermind. What I found quite interesting the Social Links aspect was you could choose if a girl would be your friend or a girlfriend. I tend to opt for friend in these things because I just feel guilty dating multiple girls in these games. I do believe there is one scene where you get confronted by each girlfriend you have at the same time. Better remember this, guys. You still won’t get away with cheating on your video game girlfriend!

Switch Off

The game is roughly the same length as Persona 3 but you need to make it that length yourself because you can end the game slightly earlier. I won’t spoil it for you. To be perfectly honest, as much as I liked this game, the twist on who the culprit behind the murders was was kind of anti-climatic. Still, they made for a decent villain in the end, even with the shaky motive. Regardless of this setback, it’s a great game.

Full Metal Pen has over 10,000 hits. I’d like to thank everyone who reads this blog or just randomly visits looking for a nice pic.

The video speaks for itself, so please enjoy.

If I’m feeling generous, I may make an Adult Only post at some point soon.

Genre: JRPG

Format: Playstation 2

Release: April 2007 (Japan) April 2008 (North America) October 2008 (Europe)

First of all, this review isn’t going to be in the usual format. It’ll still be a review, but I want to try a different style. The older one felt a bit rigid and I felt rather restricted in what I could say since I had to talk about a particular aspect. This is hard if I don’t have much to say, and it’s the reason I don’t do reviews as often as I thought I would. For an idea of what to expect, read my Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann review.

Starting Out

One day on MSN Messenger, hybridial and I were talking about Shin Megami Tensei, or rather, he was explaining why it’s such a great series. It just so happened that a Shin Megami Tensei (which I will call Megaten from now on) spinoff was going to be released soon. After reading up about it, it seemed rather cool and the first JRPG that made me interested in it. So I picked it up from Play.com.

I got playing as soon as it arrived, feeling oddly giddy. Perhaps it was because it was my first time being so interested in a JRPG, which as a genre has been something I stayed away from due to preferences and Square-Enix whoring themselves out to whatever is popular nowadays. Starting up the disc is awesome on its own. The pop-rap infusions of Persona 3 FES and Burn My Dread greeted me in the opening videos. The music that plays during the “Press Start” screen, Brand New Days ~The Beginning~ is the most beautiful piece of melancholic peaceful happiness (oxymoron, I know) I’ve had the pleasure of listening to. After all that great stuff, I finally got to start the game. I was able to choose between The Journey and The Answer, which is the extra game added onto the original; hence the name FES. Seeing as it was my first time playing this game, I chose The Journey.

Welcome to Gekkoukan High

From the game’s rather lengthy introduction, I instantly gathered that Persona 3 FES is aimed at the anime audience. The cut-scenes are done in an anime style, but not in the typical bug-eyed moe way. Also, the dub still used the Japanese honourifics, which is fine for me. As always I was a silent and very nearly mute main character. I still don’t understand why creators don’t give the VA for a main character in games more lines. You’re not alone, Link. After the usualy character and environment introductions, I was able to get on with some good ol’ battles.

The interesting thing about battles in P3 FES is the way the player can choose to attack or not and the way to attack. To attack an enemy, you just push X. However, attacking from behind gives the player an advantage over the enemy, so the entire team gets an extra turn, which is very handy later on in the game when some battles can get brutal. However, enemies can do this too. If an enemy catches you off guard, you’ll be in for a world of pain. I found it very frustrating to be on the receiving end of suck attacks, especially when the enemies would spam attacks that would Charm my team.

Let’s Climb Tartarus

“Tartarus? What’s that? Sounds like toothpaste!” - Junpei Iori

The main objective of the game is to climb a tower called Tartarus, which is a insanely high tower that appears during the Dark Hour (an hour that exists between two separate days that can only be experienced by a few people), and to defeat the enemies that dwell within the tower and threaten to take over the world, Shadows.

In order to fight them, the team uses their Persona (kind of a physical representation of their soul or inner self). These are called upon by the use of their Evokers. These are instruments that look like handguns, which are used by the user pointing the gun at their own head and pulling the trigger. Quite effective imagery to show the confronting of fears. Also, each person only has one person. Each, except for the main character that is. He has the ability to use multiple Personas. What that means is he can change Persona during the middle of battle, and he can fuse Personas together to create new ones. Be warned, there’s loads. After 70 hours of playing it, I only got about 47% of all the possible Personas to create.

Let’s Be Friends!

A new feature added to the game from the original Persona 3 is the ability to form Social Links. I found this to be quite a fun aspect to the game, and it was refreshing to take a break from battle and just chill. However the main point of Social Links is to increase the power (i.e. give more EXP) of a Persona that has the same Arcana type as the Social Link when it is created by fusion of other Persona. For example, the Emperor Arcana Social Link gives power to any Persona of the Emperor Arcana. A Social Link’s strength (the other person’s feelings towards you) is increased by spending time with them, and this determines how much power is given to a newly fused Persona. Each Social Link has 10 levels. Reaching level 10 allows creation of the most powerful Persona in each Arcana. Essentially, you’re recreating gods from various religions; mostly the Norse religion.

However, not seeing a person will make them start to dislike you, and this will cause the Social Link to go into reverse, which means you can’t level up that Social Link until you make amends. Remember, guys; you can’t cheat on your video game girlfriend anymore! If only making amends in real life was so simple.

At The End

So, after about 70 hours gameplay I finally finished it. Persona 3 is very close to being my most played game, and I’ve only played it once. The only games that can top it are Smash Bros Melee, Mario Kart 64, Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time and Perfect Dark. I’m planning to play it again with some added bonuses, like keeping the level I had at the end of the previous playthrough and some of the weapons.

Anyway, Persona 3 FES is one of my favourite games. Even though I have played JRPGs before, this game is my first introduction into real JRPGs. Regardless, Persona 3 FES is a fine game. Anyone with a PS2 should play it.

I’ll review The Answer, which is another game that’s on the disc, at a later date.

Title: Mirror’s Edge

Genre: FPS/Platformer

Format: XBox 360, Playstation 3 and PC

Release: Worldwide: November 2008

Summary

In a city that is seemingly clean cut and simple, there lie some hidden and dark secrets. There are things that the authorities want to keep from the public, and there are some things the people want kept from the authorities. In this city, Runners take it upon themselves to transport messages and items to locations around the city. They keep away from the cops and they do it from the rooftops.

One Runner, by the name of Faith, grew up in rough times. Her childhood was punctured by the death of her mother in a protest that turned into a riot. She hated her father for his inability to face reality, and left him and her younger sister (Kate) behind for a life of thievery and living on the streets. Fate had other plans when it decided to let a Runner called Mercury catch her stealing from his aparrtment. Mercury trained Faith to be a Runner and is now one of the best on his team

One day Faith decides to pay a visit to a friend of her father, Robert Pope, who is a mayor candidate, but things turn sour when he is found dead in his office, and her sister Kate is held in custody for his murder.

Presentation

What you see here are in game screenshots. Delicious, right? Everything is so clean and crisp. Man, even the use of only primary colours, secondary colours and white is spot on. Some people don’t like it, but I think it gives the game a “new age” feel, just like the game’s official song “Still Alive”. I also like this direction because it’s not pretentious and is very different from the usual “so dark you need to adjust your TV” stuff the self proclaimed hardcore crowd go for.

I have the Xbox 360 version, and, admittedly, the PS3 version seems slightly superior in terms of graphic capability. Of course, that shouldn’t matter anyway because it looks gorgeous enough on the 360. However, this is a slight downfall for the game. It’s so huge, the creators could only fit 8 hours of playtime in, combined with really long load times (which the new install feature on the 360 doesn’t even affect). However, Dice did well to not have any glitches. It’s a “clean” game; both artistically and technically.

Sound

Not much to say here. The voice acting is very good. It’s slightly cheesy at times, but I like some cheese with my action movies/games. The sound effects are spot on, and feel so much more real due to the level of immersion.

As for music, it’s great. Every piece fits in perfectly, and all the music is good to listen to. Also, the theme song that’s been kicking around recently, Still Alive by Lisa Miskovsky, is one of my new favourite songs. I don’t know what it is, but something about that song is so beautiful yet melancholic.

Gameplay

The movement is pretty standard. However, some moves are context sensitive. For example, pressing LB does “upward movement”, which can be jumping, wall running, vaulting, gaining momentum or height, etc. Pressing LT initiates “downward movement”, such as crouching, sliding and rolling. Dice have done very well to get all these many contexts to fit into one button press. It’s good stuff.

The other important aspect is Runner Vision. Basically, this tells you where to go, or offers clues. What it does is highlight objects and routes in red that may aid you in escaping quicker or getting past an obstacle. However, it’s not present in Hard difficulty for obvious reasons.

There are a couple of other important features. First is reaction time. First, you need to build up reaction time by building up momentum from running. Now, as you might have guessed, reaction time slows down the game and gives you more time to react to an enemy. This is most useful in disarming (which I will come to shortly) since the disarming needs near perfect timing. It can be used in other ways, but I found it most useful for disarming.

To disarm, you need to initiate the disarm action the instant you see the enemy’s weapon flash red (unless you’re playing on Hard difficulty). Pressing Y activates the disarm. Each disarm technique varies from level to level. Some involve Faith doing a kick to the face that comes back does a choke hold that slams the enemy into the floor. Another includes the good old sweep and heel to the chest/stomach.

Verdict

Things are looking up for those that prefer frustratingly difficult games. Mirror’s Edge is freaking hard. I don’t have a clue how many times I died playing it on just normal mode on the first playthrough. There’s a particular section which was close to giving me a mental breakdown. Basically, you run into a room, and a guy on a suspended catwalk shoots at you the instant you emerge. At this point you need to leap up to the catwalk and take him down with a disarm. It would be fine if it weren’t for the fact that the guys in the room are really accurate, and there’s two or three shooting you at the same time. That’s “Ninja Gaiden hard” right there.

I have been looking forward to this game the instant I saw the first teaser released. I knew this game was going to be something special. If you’ve followed this blog, or seen the trailers, I’m sure that there’s a high chance you’ll agree with that statement. Mirror’s Edge is probably tied with Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES (which will I’ll have a review up for soon) for my Game Of The Year.

On that note, it’s random AMV time!

Anime is Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha A’s, and the song is Blood On Fire by Attack All Around. Yes it’s J-Pop, and yes it’s Nanoha, but damn these fit well together. It’s a bit low quality, but unfortunately the HD version was made private.