" Alright we're in charge of localizing this, what's the story like again? "

" The world in the near future reached such a stage of late unregulated liberalism that 2 companies have more power than every other nation combined, and they declare war against one another because they would rather destroy half the world than not have a total market monopoly. "

" Hmmm how about we change that so that capitalism is good actually and there's a shadow government manipulating those companies who are innocenet and don't know any better (also their leader is named Aurora, thats important), and when you beat them... you achieve eternal world peace? "

" Sure. "

i don't really enjoy cars, i don't think i understand them. i don't get the excitement, i don't get the aesthetics, i can find beauty in a car design, but i don't get a rush out of it. simply put, i'm not a part of its culture

i am, however, gonna dig any car that has "DRUAGA" written in big bold letters on top of it's paint an immense amount. i'm sure this game is better for people who actually do like these machines, but i was genuinely content playing it. listen, Namco was king once. way before Atlus could start to even concede it's proven true red and black combo. this here is elegant, provocative and powerful, masterclass in design, really, in every way. nothing else was doing it like videogames were and much less like Namco was.

i honestly love how this game controls, i love how there's only two (three technically) different locations with tons of variations on how they're raced, i love the soundtrack, i love picking colors for my car, love the duel system, love the obnoxious DJ, i especially love driving at night it feels like everything to me. winning feels good, this game will make you tense and it will also make you relaxed because believe it or not there is enough time to appreciate the scenery.

i don't like cars but maybe if i had ridge racer v during my formative years i would have played racing games other than mario kart. or at the very least more ridge racer

Absolutely love the concept but damn is this game jank as hell, mainly in how resizing the window breaks the game UI. Predatory monetization also drags the experience down: like, man, I'm playing this little virtual plant care game to avoid the stress of having succulents die from neglect. Why on earth does the concept of "real time passing will kill plants if you don't sign in and water them" exist in this idle game??

I like the snail though. "wow cute" yeah that's damn right.

'Persona 3 FES Fan Excited To Finish Persona 3 FES For The First Time'

(Contains spoilers for Persona 3 FES: The Journey)

The second the trailer for that hilariously overpriced DLC expansion pass for Persona 3 Reload dropped, I realized I had to be more than a stereotype. It was time for me to beat the Persona fan allegations of “knowing a story only because I watched the cutscenes on YouTube.” It was time for me to beat The Answer before it becomes cool…

Okay. That's all like. 30% of my actual motivation for doing this. I replayed the entirety of The Journey beforehand as a way to cement my feelings towards the original in the wake of Reload. And due to my various gripes with Reload’s presentation and also generally just preferring the original on most fronts, I didn’t think it’d be right if my first, proper experience with The Answer was through its remake. Though I’ve replayed Persona 3 FES many times before, this post-story gamemode was something I was never in the mood to finish after reaching the phenomenal conclusion of the original story. I never saw a continuation as necessary. And I think P3’s dungeon crawling loses much of its thematic meaning and intrigue when you divorce it from its other social sim half. Even now, after properly finishing The Answer, I’d say my initial concerns weren’t unfounded. But there definitely is still much worth in the experience.

Right off the bat, I adore the set up. Characterization is one of Persona 3’s strong suits, and it’s on full display here. You’re immediately stricken by its understated, yet somber tone. The rest of the story is quite solid in showcasing the various ways each member of SEES have either developed or regressed since the original story’s end, but the banter of the opening few scenes alone communicates these ideas in such a perfect fashion. SEES’ fallibility has always been one of my favorite aspects about them as a cast. They’re beloved for that sense of realness and humanity that permeates throughout each member, and their flaws being so highlighted is a key part as to why. They might dramatically “complete” their character arcs through Persona evolutions or strengthen their own convictions to the degree where they can clash with the embodiment of death itself. But none of that means the writers won’t continue to portray them as the messy little fucked up group of teens that they are. And this idea is what The Answer most strongly reinforces. As showcasing the self-destructive actions they make in reaction to facing such a devastating loss is the entire crux of the story.

The Answer shines the most with its character writing in three clear cases: Aigis, Metis, and Yukari. The former is a perfect lead for the protagonist to pass his torch to. Aigis’s arc up until this point already shared much in common with her emo husband, as they both primarily developed and gained a sense of identity through their collective experiences alongside their friends. So fully cementing her as a Wild Card just feels extremely right, especially after the bond the two form in the main story and this version's newly added Aeon social link (best social link in the series btw). Newcomer Metis exists primarily to strengthen Aigis’ character arc and she does a phenomenal job at that. It’s clear from the start that she’s meant to reflect Aigis in a symbolic sense and the parallels between them only grow stronger in terms of effectiveness as the story builds up their relationship. But despite playing a more function oriented role in the narrative, she is still incredibly entertaining. I clapped at every scene where Akihiko threatened her life and she responds by casually telling him to shut the fuck up. Then there’s Yukari. Do I even need to justify her role? I feel like that’s just a waste of breath. Shocking: a 17 year old girl gets a little bit mean when the boy she loves dies in the arms of another girl who’s neglecting to face the full reality of his death. Anyways, she’s great here. Though I definitely feel like her story could’ve been told with a better degree of nuance. Yukari’s always been one of the more empathetic cast members and seeing her act so abrasive towards everyone in general is a bit off putting at times. But I still respect the idea behind it all and it results in these beautiful emotionally charged scenes that’re on par with some of the best from the base game.

Though where this story really begins to lose me is its poor pacing and sloppy structure. It’s a case of stretching such a short narrative extremely thin. There’s just not enough here to justify going through seven different sequences of dungeon crawling. And while I’d compliment the characterization, I honestly feel the arcs of Aigis, Metis, and Yukari are the only things here that felt like they were written with complete confidence and intention. There’s this specific and formulaic way they go about exploring SEES as characters for the entire middle point of the story that feels so… random? They’re nice scenes to see, especially since I adore these characters, but I honestly can’t tell you how the looks into the past are supposed to add to the story’s statement in any substantial way. Also not a big fan of Metis’s info dumping or SEES’ guesswork, as a lot of it comes off as these awkward justifications for the story’s progression. It results in these genuinely intriguing mysteries and heartfelt conflicts that feel clunky in their resolutions.

I had negative expectations for the gameplay here. And that left me kinda shocked when I walked away enjoying most of the experience. The Answer is nothing but dungeon crawling, set on hardmode, with more complex boss design, and restricted access to certain quality of life features. On paper that all sounds fucking terrible. And some of it is. I, for the life of me, still question why they decided to remove warp stations before boss floors in favor of one way teleporters and a save point. To the point where I grabbed a mod that lets you fully heal at said save points (Sorry for being a filthy CHEATER, but I did not have the strength to deal with such a waste of time. I have a life 💔). But after getting over a lot of the annoyances that came from the simple concept of these changes, I came to realize that The Answer truly appeals to little freaks like me. Someone who genuinely likes Persona 3 FES’s flawed, yet bold battle system.

Battles can be infuriating on occasion due to the amped up resistances of most enemies and how that tends to bring out the worst of the AI party system, but I generally found them fun to fight. Though the one thing I’d like to acknowledge in particular are the nerfs to Fusion. That’s right. My The Answer hot take isn’t that weak shit like “it’s actually good” or “Yukari is reasonable.” It’s that the lack of arcana burst and compendium are valuable changes that add a different layer to the way you’re expected to engage with the dungeon crawling. Foresight is paramount and every fusion you make feels important. Between making sure I had each buff skill accounted for at any given moment or making the most of EXP share passives by transferring them to Personae with desirable skills, it feels like The Answer was able to bring out a niche appeal of the Fusion system the other mainline titles rarely nail. Due to my foresight and knowledge of the base game’s skill progression, I almost never had to stop and grind like I was expecting to. I was entirely prepared for 99% of the encounters I faced (fuck the penultimate Abyss of Time fight oh my god) and that felt extremely rewarding. I get that it’s harsh in design and not everyone’s experience is going to go as smoothly. But I found it was an interesting twist on a system that normally becomes less and less substantive to engage with as the game goes on.

It was really satisfying to see the credits draw to a close. I’ve been madly in love with Persona 3 FES for almost four years now and, though it’s funny to say, today is the day I finally finished it properly. While a lot of my initial assessments of The Answer came to be true, I’m glad I was still able to get something out of it in this playthrough. I’m still shocked by the amount of enjoyment I was able to find in its challenge run-esque design mentality. And best of all, it’s given me an excuse to brainrot over Persona 3 for a little while longer, thanks to the ways it expands on its cast. As flawed and half baked as it feels in so many regards, I’d say I overall enjoyed my time with it. Can’t wait to see how I feel about its remake, especially given the announcement that they’ll be adding in more story scenes. Now, someone come restrain me before I buy the $35 expansion pass for Persona 3 Reload. Hurry… There’s not much time. The microchip is beeping oh god o h no I. LOVE ATLUS GAAAAAAH!!!

Playing this on the legendary version, with some mods installed, not enough to change up too much, just minor tweaks and re-additions.

It's been a bit since I sat down and replayed the Mass Effect trilogy, it used to be a yearly tradition, and I don't know why I pulled back. I think when they announced that there was going to be more of this shit, I lost interest because being a Mass Effect fan is like being hit with a metal pipe. Now, this shit was a middle-high school obsession of mine. In middle school, I couldn't play it, but I'd watch all these videos and playthroughs of it, and in high school I finally sat down and played them, and I got hooked. These games hit me like crack in the 80's. Mass Effect is a 2007 game that handles like a 2004 game, it plays rough, yet despite any and all issues: this game is fucking incredible. This game is rife with piss poor gameplay, audio issues, and RPG jank, but goddamn it's world building is so fucking incredible, it's all worth it.

Mass Effect's main story is simple, bad guy does a bad thing, you assemble your ragtag team, and try to stop him. But it's the layers of it that make it work. The galaxy you inhabit, the characters and races you meet, the motivations of characters, and the unravelling of the overall plot make Mass Effect something special. Granted, only 4 of your 6 members have a big impact on story beats (ironically, the two outliers end up being my favorite characters in the series, and in period lmfao) but everyone has their motivations, their beliefs, and give background to the groups they represent. I like the cast in this a lot, even Ashley who gets shit on a lot by people who don't pay attention. Wrex is my favorite in this game, the things you learn about the Krogan from him is all interesting, his pessimistic personality towards his race makes him the deepest of the cast in my humble opinion. The game also has some really cool side characters, with some notable VAs sprinkled in, and Seth Green (I do really like Joker tho so good for you, Scotty). The game has some real nice world building too, in codexes, missions, and such. Even something innocuous can give you a piece of worldbuilding that's pretty neat. Granted, a lot of it ends up being a wall of text, but it's neat regardless.

Well, the gameplay sucks. Moving on.

Ok, I guess I should say more.

Mass Effect 1's level design is weak as hell, the gameplay and shooting is clunky as fuck, inventory problems end up being an annoyance, powers feel bland and boring, and the mako. Granted the LE version tweaks gameplay a bit, and it's less miserable, but it's still outdated and clunky. The way 1 plays makes me somewhat appreciate the future streamlining, cuz it makes playing feel more tolerable. Levels will have regular combat and mako sections, and the combat parts feel strung together quickly, and the mako sections tend to be long straight lines. Speaking of the Mako, it handles like shit, and while it handles somewhat better in LE, the lack of gravity defiance can make open world sections feel worse. Oh yeah, there's "open worlds" as in, empty fucking planets devoid of anything fun. The random worlds are poop.

LE makes some graphical changes I either don't mind or don't like. The eden prime mission lost a lot of it's life, and some of the lighting in areas makes characters look like melted wax. But, for a remaster of a 2007 game, it looks fine. In terms of the soundtrack, I dig it. There's a lot of fun energetic electronic pieces, and some fantastic immersive ambient tracks. Issa goodun.

It's nice to go back to this game, this trilogy means so much to me, and I hope to GOD this company goes under before that new one even has a proper gameplay trailer.

I grew up with this version (Wii) of Unleashed, and it's always been a goal of mine to come back and beat this thing since I never did as a kid - I think I got stuck on Shamar - and man, it held up. I always thought, in retrospect, that that shorter bursts of speed from this game's boost was really disappointing compared to the continuous boost of the 360/PS3 game and later Sonic games in general, but actually playing this, I kind of like that it makes you think more in the moment on if you want to boost or not. You're pretty much always going top speed in other boost games, but here you have to think "is this a good time to boost? Will I accidentally launch myself into the stratosphere?" Though there are other times where even if it seems fine to boost, you'll suddenly come up on some enemies you couldn't see before and now you can't take an upper pathway, or a boost pad will rocket you into the skybox because they didn't want you to boost there. Overall, though, it's kind of an interesting dynamic.

I like that the settings of this game are more varied than other globetrotting adventures in games. Yeah, Italy and China based areas are typical, but you don't tend to see levels in games based off Greece, southeast Asia, Inuit settlements in the Arctic, or, hell, even the Middle East is often underrepresented, but they're all here and it's really nice. They even got Michigan in here - thanks Eggmanland!

Easily the most controversial part of Unleashed is the main gimmick of the nighttime stages where Sonic gets a bit fluffier, stretchy, and way slower. People really don't like the slower paced platforming, and the very obviously God of War inspired combat. But I've always loved these parts so much. First of all, the vibes are incredible. You're often accompanied by smooth jazz as you romp through the local towns, and while the graphics aren't top tier or anything, I think it's pretty pleasant in the nighttime stages. The combat is pretty shallow, but I think it's fun enough to bear throughout this game.

I made it my mission to go for 100% completion in this game, and it was a blast for most of it. I mostly got all S ranks in the nighttime stages barring a few fumbles, so those were one-time deals. Daytime stages were definitely more troubling, but learning the levels and mastering the movements of this game was really satisfying; the time limits to get S ranks were just low enough to need to work for but not so low that it was frustrating.

But that's just talking for the main levels' goals. The more I looked into 100%, the more annoying it became. In each area of the game (except Eggmanland), there's a shrine that contains 3-4 rooms opened by collecting Sun Medals and Moon Medals, each of these rooms are more or less puzzles where you switch between Sonic as a hedgehog and as the Werehog. These rooms aren't too bad (except on that was particularly annoying), but I eventually found that I needed 69 Moon Medals (that's not a joke, they just happened to go with that amount) to open somewhere around 5-9 rooms - don't remember the exact amount. But I had beaten every level possible. Well, it turns out that you need to collect every single piece of concept art, music, cutscenes, and tips in order to do everything. And the game is really bad about telling you where these are, vague hints of where they are. They don't tell you specific levels - hell, they don't even state the continents by name you just need to know that, say, Chun-nan is the third continent (despite being the fourth on you visit). The game doesn't tell you if you've gotten all the items in a level. It doesn't tell you if a villager in the town has an item for you. It doesn't tell you if a new Gaia Gate has opened up. You just gotta figure it out yourself or find the surprisingly sparse guides people have made out there.

I think the worst part is your reward for doing everything. The level you unlock is the worst one in the game. It's in Adabat for no real reason, you're running on winding paths that make boosting nigh impossible, there's almost nothing on these paths, and getting hit one time makes your restart. You ultimately unlock the special short films which are neat but... c'mon, no one wants to go through all that effort to get those one Wii quality. I don't really expect games to have great completion rewards, but if the path to those rewards are tedious and full of poor menuing, then it's a sad day.

I always knew that if I went back to this game, I'd still like it, but I really didn't expect to get as much out of it as I did. I still haven't played the HD (for lack of a better term) version, but I've always thought it looks fun as hell and cranks up what like about the Werehog and daytime stages tenfold, so I'll be happy to get around to that eventually.

it's almost three in the morning as i finish this up. i started the cleanup at ten p.m. if that goes to show how bad the collectibles are

Wow, it's the first game I ever worked on professionally! I'm marking this game as "mastered" considering I spent 2 years of my life working on it.

Look, there are other former Volition coworkers of mine that have guested on podcasts and talked about some of the issues this game's development went through. This game was supposed to be doing a lot more, originally. The ideas were too lofty to be pulled off by a team of Volition's size, poor management and meddling from the publisher damaged team morale, and a whole host of other things contributed to the poor final product.

The game was originally more of a loot-based, co-op action RPG with three open world cities that would update over time. The map updates were kind of like Fortnite's, but smaller and on a more frequent basis. New events would happen every so often that featured community goals, the kind you currently see happening in Helldivers 2. The ideas were neat, but it all felt very pie-in-the-sky.

The newly updated engine and tools Volition was using at the time were designed with this original game in mind... which means the tools needed to make a single player open world game with linear missions did not really exist. There were no cinematics tools and no tools for linear, checkpointed missions. So that's why the game launched with a shitload of bugs that would break mission progression.

Also here's a nitpick I have with the game that no one has ever pointed out. There are multiple areas in the game where way more scientist NPCs spawn than any other type and it's really jarring. Also all of the civilian NPCs look like they were built on a slightly different scale than the player characters. All of the civilians are kind of tiny looking, even when put next to the playable characters that are also on the small side.

In the world of dragons...

One of my earliest gaming memories was watching a friend play Spyro 1 on his PS2, running off a memory card(?). That was admittedly super weird, but i thought nothing of it back then because I was a child who didn't comprehend how any of this worked. Spyro left enough of an impression on me that I asked to be him for Halloween, and my aunt actually handmade a big ol' purple dragon costume for me to wear. Imagine that, a 4-year old getting attached to a character he hardly knew. All this preamble is just to admit that I'm totally guilty. I ended up locking myself into Nintendo systems for the longest time in my youth, so the Spyro I had played was totally off-limits for over a decade. All this time later, and I had never picked up and played that original game...until just a few days ago.

I guess it makes a lot of sense how I managed to grasp Spyro back when I could barely wrap my baby hands around the concept of a controller. Spyro controls so smoothly, even on a dpad. You jump, spit fire, glide, and dash around. Actions like dashing also recenter the camera behind you in a pinch, so it's not too cumbersome to work with. A lot of the combat is rudimentary: if an enemy has shiny armor, ram it. If it's bigger or faster than you, burn it. If one method doesn't work, odds are that the other one will. But "simple" really works for this game's mechanics, fully complemented by the stages themselves.

Each world is represented by this big hub area, with enough secrets and goodies to collect that they may as well be considered levels in their own right. Each hub has portals that fly you to the proper levels, and even if the levels aren't truly interconnected, the sheer scale afforded to every level captures that high fantasy vibe perfectly. Every stage you visit has a different vibe to it, featuring unique enemies, hazards, or both. There's this dark tree hollow where enemies shift between being fierce demons and wimpy imps depending on if light is touching them. There's a big open level where you charge and glide between treetops. In one of the final levels, the enemies are dressed up like Rambo and wield actual machine guns. Everything is so animated too. PS1 squash-n-stretch, baby.

I'd be remiss to not mention the flight stages in each world, but they didn't leave that much of an impression on me. Their routes are pretty straightforward once you get used to the controls. The only one that troubled me was the secret first one, because there is no clear routing for that one. This game also has bosses...I think? Every single one of them is about as effective at killing you as the normal enemies, which is to say they're as flammable as your local gas station. If I had to compliment them, the regular game flow isn't interrupted by the boss taking damage. They're basically like any other unique enemy in that regard, they just require a little extra burninating. The dialogue is kinda funny in an "I think they're trying to be humorous?" kind of way. Spyro's definitely trying to have a "cool" factor to his snide remarks, but I just wanna pinch his E-rated cheeks instead. Then you watch a beefy dragon Named "Thor" blurt out the most feeble gratitude you've ever heard, and it's inexplicably hilarious.

All in all, I'm impressed with Insomniac's first runaway success. It's not quite where things started for their studio, but it's definitely what kickstarted their current legacy. I could stop here and say I avenged my pre-gamer childhood self, but I think I'm in it for the long haul now.

The adventure continues...

Back when I wanted to play the Dragon Quest series (which to my knowledge had less to really do with me riding the usual smash hype waves but was rather fueled by wanting to see what the series was about as my friends were into DQ11), I wanted to play the first games but I was alone in my expensive-ass college apartment so I didn't have my trusty SNES or NES to bust out the originals and emulation ain't my jam when I can avoid it. I did have a Wii and a palpable comprehension level of Japanese (which to this day is far from complete lmao), so I was like fuck it we ball and played the 16 bit versions of DQ 1-3 through this compilation disc. Very strange that games as extremely important to Japanese video gaming as the first few Dragon Quests got a limited compilation disc to be played on the wii instead of the rational decision to put them on virtual console, but like I guess if Mario All Stars can get away with it so can Dragon Quest. It's a pretty barebones compilation, there's the first 3 games both in their original famicom form as well as their super famicom remakes as well as your typical basic art gallery bonuses that come with these kinds of packages. I do think it's cool to add both the originals for those that want to embrace the 8-bit limitations and jank as well as the remakes for those that want a more comfortable Dragon Questing. It would have been cool if they did some way to transfer save files between the two game types but that'd probably not work given how the remakes for the games (especially 3) are. DQ1 and 3 alone are def worth getting this comp for but there are probably much easier ways to play em these days than finding an obscure wii compilation and I'm just the very weird outlier, I think getting actual carts is pretty trivially cheap (or at least it SHOULD be). If you are in the exact same extremely statistically small scenario as I was when I played this and want to get some dragons quested this is a very good way to do so!