Littleax
Bio
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Badges
Gone Gold
Received 5+ likes on a review while featured on the front page
GOTY '23
Participated in the 2023 Game of the Year Event
N00b
Played 100+ games
Liked
Gained 10+ total review likes
220
Total Games Played
000
Played in 2024
008
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A slightly better version of the first game. That open world bike level is rough and the story/characters are still not great, but the game's fun
One of the best roguelikes I've ever played. I have a little trouble putting it on the same level as something like TBOI because it has a relatively limited amount of content, but I don't think that's fair to it. Incredible boss designs, strategic gameplay, banger soundtrack, lisa dialogue, solid variety. Feels made for me.
There's a lot of great things about this game, but the actual gameplay is poor enough that I can't give it more than a 5/10.
I've played all of the 3 modern persona games, and there's a lot here that's great that makes me confused as to why the later games didn't keep them. The demon negotiations in this game are fun, and being able to use your party relationships for them is excellent. I could see a feature like this in a game with a larger cast (like p3-p5) being really interesting and give good incentives to bring a variety of party members. These relationships changing through the story is also a very nice touch. Your party members in this game are all competent, directly involved in the story, have meaningful relationships with each other, and you have regular opportunities to talk to them through the main story.
The story in this game is also good, better than later games in the series, but still not incredible. I enjoyed it, but I don't feel like I have much to say beyond that. I appreciate that this game felt like less of a guilty pleasure since there was less cringy anime shit than later entries, but I did miss some of the dumb jokes sometimes too.
Unfortunately, the actual gameplay of this game is pretty awful. Most of your attacks that aren't fusion spells do pitiful damage, and since there isn't a 1more/knockdown system, combat boils down to spamming the same few spells unless the enemy is immune to them, in which case you run away. I played this with very liberal use of fast forward and yet I still avoided combat when possible - it's that bad. Dungeons are the vast majority of the gameplay here, and while you explore, you'll have an encounter about every 8 seconds. Miserable. There's no persona fusion and recruitment isn't as fun as normal SMT. Instead of just joining you when you successful persuade a demon, they give you cards which you bring to Igor to get a version of them with only one spell, which you need your other party members to carry to make useful. There's no journal, so if you stop playing after finishing a quest and don't play for a couple days, get ready to google what you have to do next.
I like the good in this game, but the bad is bad enough that I can't recommend it to anyone except freaks who like old JRPG's. I would not recommend this to fans of the modern persona series unless they are specifically interested in the history of the series from an "academic" perspective.
I've played all of the 3 modern persona games, and there's a lot here that's great that makes me confused as to why the later games didn't keep them. The demon negotiations in this game are fun, and being able to use your party relationships for them is excellent. I could see a feature like this in a game with a larger cast (like p3-p5) being really interesting and give good incentives to bring a variety of party members. These relationships changing through the story is also a very nice touch. Your party members in this game are all competent, directly involved in the story, have meaningful relationships with each other, and you have regular opportunities to talk to them through the main story.
The story in this game is also good, better than later games in the series, but still not incredible. I enjoyed it, but I don't feel like I have much to say beyond that. I appreciate that this game felt like less of a guilty pleasure since there was less cringy anime shit than later entries, but I did miss some of the dumb jokes sometimes too.
Unfortunately, the actual gameplay of this game is pretty awful. Most of your attacks that aren't fusion spells do pitiful damage, and since there isn't a 1more/knockdown system, combat boils down to spamming the same few spells unless the enemy is immune to them, in which case you run away. I played this with very liberal use of fast forward and yet I still avoided combat when possible - it's that bad. Dungeons are the vast majority of the gameplay here, and while you explore, you'll have an encounter about every 8 seconds. Miserable. There's no persona fusion and recruitment isn't as fun as normal SMT. Instead of just joining you when you successful persuade a demon, they give you cards which you bring to Igor to get a version of them with only one spell, which you need your other party members to carry to make useful. There's no journal, so if you stop playing after finishing a quest and don't play for a couple days, get ready to google what you have to do next.
I like the good in this game, but the bad is bad enough that I can't recommend it to anyone except freaks who like old JRPG's. I would not recommend this to fans of the modern persona series unless they are specifically interested in the history of the series from an "academic" perspective.