Grandia's voice acting sucks and other obvious statements.

So Grandia is available for purchase and download as a PS One classic on PSN. I urge all those with PS3s to download this not because it's a great game (it is by the way) but because you can all finally shut the fuck up with your nitpicky bullshit about how bad the voicework in Persona or Final Fantasy games are. Seriously, play Grandia and weep.

In other news...Bobby Kotick is an idiot. That is all.

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona Review

You know, I’ll be honest. I’m very torn about my feelings when it comes to Persona. On one hand what you have is an excellent redesigned port of an older game that addressed many of the issues that plagued it previously. But on the other hand, the game itself just had a few nagging flaws already to begin with that keep it from being fantastic.

Like many games in the Persona series, this game has an excellent, stylish presentation. Many changes were made to give the game an updated feel and it all works. The new opening video is marvelous and captures the feel of the story perfectly. Other new fully animated FMVs, with voice acting exclusively for the English version as well, and of course, the translation has been completely overhauled, in order to present a more authentic version to the English audience. To continue this update, the music has been entirely redone in the style of some of the more contemporary Persona games. It’s all personal opinion really, but for the most part the new music works and tends to get catchy after awhile, even if you have absolutely no clue what they’re singing. It just gets indoctrinated into your brain after awhile and eventually you start to enjoy it. Of course, this a problem in other Persona games as well, but the biggest problem with the soundtrack is that many of the same tracks often repeat way too many times and your growing affection for the music may quickly turn into seething hatred for the music depending on how long your play session is. 2 to 3 hours nonstop of listening to the battle theme tends to have you reaching for the volume button irregardless of how catchy it becomes. But really that’s a minor issue, even if you hate the music there’s plenty more put into this re-release to enjoy that makes it all worthwhile. But unfortunately, the visuals for the most part have remained largely untouched. It’s initially jarring to see how the graphics have aged to a degree, particularly when witnessing the stiff, wooden, battle animations, but really, the graphics overall haven’t aged that badly and while the graphics have remained largely untouched, the menus have been given a brand new look and are easier to navigate and the absolutely atrocious world map from the original game has been mercifully redesigned. Instead of a hideous 3D map, the developers wisely opted for a panned out 2D map and a simple press of the square button will tell you each location in the immediate area. Game progression is handled much more smoothly this go around. Load times have been shortened. An option to shorten battle animations has been added. Walking speed has been greatly increased and holding down the circle button lets you move even faster. All of this helps create a more enjoyable gameplay experience from the original.

This is a fun game. But it helps to remember that this game is not the same experience you’ll get from playing some of the more recent Persona games. This game settles itself in sort of a limbo between the old school dungeon crawling RPGs of yesterday (dungeons are actually in first person in this one) with the more contemporary story driven RPGs of today. Story is secondary to the actual gameplay and you’ll spend most of your time navigating the many of the labyrinths the game offers. That’s not to say that the story isn’t memorable or doesn’t have memorable characters. In fact, one of Persona’s greatest strengths is in the excellent pacing of the game. The plot is revealed in such a fashion that you get just enough information so that you’re able to figure out what your objective is and move forward with little hassle. Never does the game get sidetracked in its plot, dragging the length of the game to an unnecessary level; in fact the game is only about 20 to 30 hours long depending upon your play style and by the end it doesn’t feel like it was too short or too long, but just right.

However, like I previously stated, you’ll be walking around and navigating dungeons in this game. A lot. That’s not particularly a bad thing though. Because where this game shines more than any other area is in its unique battle system. Similar to a chess board almost, you have to place your characters on a grid and their placement on that grid, coupled with their weapon choice is what determines what enemies they can attack. Characters can choose between both weapon and gun attacks, with guns generally providing better range, but sacrificing power over weapons and of course characters can also summon their Personas in battle as well. Each of your characters can keep a stock of up to 3 Personas at a time, with each character having a different affinity for different Personas. In other words, some Personas work better than others depending on who has it “equipped.” Now a staple of any Persona game, players can create new Personas by visiting Igor in the Velvet Room and fusing them together by obtaining various spell cards from the demons you encounter, which brings up the most unique aspect of the battle system, the negotiations. Yes, in order to be successful in Persona, holding conversations and trying to pick out the right answer to please demons so that they’ll relinquish these cards and other items and money is essential. It seems a little confusing at first but really it’s just a matter of mix and matching, and eventually you’ll figure out what to say to which demon after a few encounters. To help you out a meter that displays the demons’ various emotions is displayed and shows your progress with the negotiation. If you find yourself angering it further and further, try having another character negotiate or try a different approach with the same character. It’s this interaction that keeps battles fun and fresh. They can also save your hide if you’re low on health and suddenly get ambushed from behind.

If you feel put off by things like “dungeon-crawler”, and “negotiation” because it sounds like it’s complicated, don’t be. Actually, arguably this game is perhaps the easiest game in the series, provided you do the main storyline. While the inability to attack every enemy on the screen and only those “in range” force you often times to rely on magic, your magic slowly regenerates as you move outside of battle and no matter what spells that particular Persona has learned, it costs the same amount of MP to use no matter what. In fact, your Personas level up based upon how much you use them in combat so there’s absolutely no reason not to use them frequently in combat. If your main character dies, it’s not an instant game over and while exploiting weaknesses is still a part of the strategy, it’s not as absolutely vital to success as it is in P3 or P4. In fact I progressed through the game and very rarely had to use a healing item. Not to imply that this game is a cakewalk or anything. A cheap death is still very possible. There are a lot of nasty status effects in this game that can disable you if you’re not paying attention and your whole party could be quickly wiped out because they continue to neutralize your members and attempting to flee the battle results in failure more than half of the time. Couple this with a very high encounter rate and you could quickly find yourself loading up your last save if you’re not careful. The game isn’t the hardest RPG out there, but it certainly doesn’t allow you to get lazy. Easily the worst aspect of the game is the ridiculous encounter rate. While negotiation with demons helps somewhat it’s still aggravating to take two steps and immediately be thrust into another battle.

But for all of the game’s flaws there’s still plenty of reasons to give the game at least one play through, but really to get the maximum enjoyment from it, multiple play throughs are recommended. In fact, the alternate side-quest, the Snow Queen Quest has been added to this version of the game which was cut out of the original and offers a completely different storyline from the main game. While this is intriguing, I should give a fair warning and say that this is significantly more difficult than the main storyline, although it’s still do-able provided you have the time and patience to complete it. Each story has both a bad and a good ending and which party members you can take along can vary depending upon your responses and choices as you play which makes each play experience different from others.

It’s a little rough around the edges, but overall I enjoyed this revisit to see where the Persona series began. This game won’t set the world on fire or anything but I encourage all fans of the Shin Megami Tensei series to check it out, especially if you’ve never played the original release on PSX. It’s been given a cool new look and feel and while visually it doesn’t really impress by today’s standards the game mechanics still shine and provide two things that are timeless; an intriguing story and plain good ol’ fun.

Only in a Japanese RPG could a fucking basketball do you in.

So, um....yeah. Snow Queen Quest. Much to my chagrin today I made it all the way up to the top of the first tower only to be bested by a group of basketballs and toilet seats right before the boss room. Yup. 2 to 3 hrs or so completely down the drain. Because you see there are no save points once you do a tower and if you get back attacked by a group of enemies due to a spell of bad luck and die because you weren't probably prepared you get hours of work wiped out just like that. Unfortunately such a fate has befallen me today. I likely won't be going back to Persona PSP anytime soon. That Snow Queen Quest is just plain evil man. I like old school RPGs but man, the era of playing for hours with no save points is one I'm glad we aren't re-living in this day and age......

.....That reminds me, Ashley called me and told me that my copy of Demon's Souls will be available for pick up tomorrow. Oh, well. I've got some extra money in the bank I've been saving up for any possible controllers I may throw out of the window in frustration when the first dragon I come across roasts my ass and I lose all of my equipment and items I worked for hours to obtain. I do love wasting my time with frustratingly hard RPGs. I seem to have some sort of sick, twisted obsession with it.

Hurt me MORE Atlus

Persona 1 Complete!

It's pretty much going to be a rainy weekend for me so I won't have much to do, so what did I do? Get ahead on my schoolwork so I'll be extra prepared for anything?

Shyeah, right.

No, I used this little bit of surprising free time that I had to finally finish Persona. Yay. Now I can finally say that I've played and beaten every single game with the name Persona slapped on the box, well....assuming we're not counting Revelations: Persona, the original. 'Cuz this game is pretty much the same as that one. Except better. You know what I mean. I have to say it was pretty fun overall and thankfully the game lived up to my expectations. I didn't think it was going to blow me away but I still found it to be more entertaining than Devil Survivor which admittedly gets pretty boring after awhile. I'll likely give the game another go around as you can get a completely different storyline (albeit harder) with the whole Snow Queen Quest thing. I'll probably put up a review proper of the game shortly since I know the whole world was awaiting with abated breath to know my opinion of it. :P

P2 IS EP AS DLC?!?

I just picked up my copy of Persona 1 at Gamestop today, it was there as "Ashley" promised and of course I'm the only one that pre-ordered it. How ner.....awesome am I? They were nice enough to even package the original soundtrack in with the game. Great! Unless you're one of those whiners complaining about how "THEY RUINED TEH MUSIC IT WAS SO MUCH BETER IN THE ORIGINL TEH JPOP SUXORS". You're just shit out of luck I guess. Anyway. Hopefully this game does well particularly as DLC on the PSN when it releases on 10/1. Why? Because as I've stated a long time ago, I think Atlus will look at the sales for this game for any possible re-releases of Persona 2, which is an even better game than this one. Seriously, even if you didn't pre-order, pick it up off of the PSN and at least give it a shot. You might be surprised. It's aged surprisingly well since 96. Good sales will hopefully finally = Persona 2 Innocent Sin FINALLY getting a translation and perhaps a remake of Eternal Punishment. At the very least the original Eternal Punishment will be available as DLC.

The hate craved fools just won't stop.

So I managed to listen to the entire soundtrack for Persona on PSP and I have to say I rather enjoyed it. It's easily one of Shoji Meguro's best work to date. However, I seem share somewhat of a minority opinion regarding the soundtrack as most people actually seem to hate it. I'm not entirely sure what the reason for that is, but it seems to have to do with the fact that its representative of the fact that this series has taken a recent turn for the lighthearted and isn't all dark and moody anymore. Well, actually, I find this to be a good thing as I think the new lighthearted tone that this series has taken has made it more refreshing and sets it apart from the other games in the Megaten franchise. You want dark and moody? Go play DDS. (Don't get me wrong I love DDS, but its nice for a franchise of games to be diverse.) And honestly, the original Persona wasn't all that dark, at least in comparison to the regular Megami Tensei games that came before it. Come on guys, change is good sometimes. Embrace it. Besides, at least now we get a proper translation instead of a bastardized Americanization, so chin up okay? Everything will be alright.