Cringe culture is such a bitch because it keeps people from experiencing genuinely great art. Admittedly I don’t think 14 year old was emotionally mature enough to do a pacifist route, and so I’m glad in some ways I didn’t play this until 2019. Anyway, this is like my 3rd replay? I played originally on Switch and wanted to clear my Steam file. We talk a lot about a “cringe culture,” and I can’t really further add to condemnation of such or praise the game in any way which hasn’t been accomplished, but rather I’m just astounded to see an indie game truly get such a large following and spot in our culture, even if the part most everyone knows is the No Mercy. And beyond that, an indie game that really stays that way and doesn’t go the route of say, Minecraft.

Hi there, long-time fan of both Undertale and Deltarune, figured I'd write this down now that I'm done playing this.

This review (if you can call it that, it's kind of rambly) contains minor spoilers. It's also pretty damn long, hope you don't mind reading!

As of the time of writing this is probably the best Undertale fangame that I've played so far. It's been a long while a game made me hyperfixate as much as this one did, the last one I can only recall being either releases of Deltarune.

I want to preface this as someone who has spent many years looking at fan projects of this series and consuming them in a similar fashion as Homer Simpson consuming donuts in the depths of hell. I have seen so much mud. So much slop. Pure unfiltered chum. This game despite all its hang-ups stays as far and away from that as it can.

Stupid jokes and analogies aside, this is not a perfect game by any means. There are a few very telling problems. I'll start with them because I overall have mostly have positive things to say about the game. The main reason I'm even writing this review is because I really liked playing this despite all the hiccups.

The first two areas (Ruins and Snowdin) feel very much underbaked. It's not until the third area of the game where everything picks up like a freight train. Snowdin compared to its Undertale counterpart feels like taking a quiet stroll as opposed to having two idiots bother you every now and then.

The major characters associated with both of these areas also barely do anything in them. Dalv in the Ruins is especially egregious as he has almost nothing to do with the actual plot of the game. Also the fact that he looks, weirdly out of place graphically compared to everyone else in the game lmao. It's really jarring when he's placed next to everybody else.

As for Martlet, her issue is moreso just not having as many good character moments as everyone else. I wouldn't call her very strong character-wise either but I will much rather take someone who is fine than someone who is actively annoying and a detriment.

As for the major characters as a whole... While I understand the desire to not just copy the formula Undertale has, I think having dedicated "hangouts" for the major characters similarly to Undertale would help a lot with fleshing them out.

I've had no real issue with the general NPCs other than more of a desire to see them interact with one-another more. Mo for example would be very amusing to see around being a minor annoyance to other people. Of course, seeing more of the general NPCs would be a net positive as well.

The feeling of "disjointed-ness" the game sometimes has in its first half is at its worst when it comes to one of the special enemy encounters in the first half of the third area. Not only does that fight and character come out of literal nowhere, its main gimmick is also very very unwieldly. It is by far the most egregiously clunky and sloppy fight in the entire game. It would be much better if something like that was either in Snowdin or in a much better spot that isn't entirely random, like around the third area.

I originally was going to mention it was a bit sad that the game doesn't have as much of a sense of humour as Undertale, but I've learned to kind of appreciate that due to well, the inherent tragedy of this entire story, and the implications of what is going to be Clover's fate. Plus, spaghetti westerns are often overly dramatic and broody.

The main issue I had that doesn't have to do with the game's writing was the design decisions when it came to some of the bosses. This mainly applies to the final boss of the Pacifist route and most of the bosses of the No Mercy route, it is very easy to get stuck in these fights if you don't have enough items, as the game also doesn't let you go back and restock if you're too far in. I had to more or less restart the final pacifist boss fight as I ran out of items in the final phase.

Rest is just minor gripes, really. Like the lack of a skip button like Deltarune has. I won't mention things like Clover not being able to save on their own or the timeline situation as that doesn't really bother me much at all. I find it a bit silly to just focus on that aspect of the game anyway.

Still reading? I promise I'm gonna talk about the good stuff now lol.

Despite everything I just said this I really do think the game managed to stick the landing at the end of it. This has by far the best art out of any project related to this series, from the backgrounds to all of the different animations. It's almost jarring to see the actual backgrounds used in Undertale and its characters in this game, because every other background and character is very lovingly illustrated. I'd say most of them look better than what can be seen in Deltarune currently, lmao.

It's only honestly kind of dizzying to think just how much damn work went into this entire thing. The final bosses of all three routes are also incredible spectacles, with actual difficulty put to them as well. This isn't to diss any of the final bosses Undertale has, mind you, this is mostly to state that I like these fights because they're not only incredible in visuals, but actually difficult too (the No Mercy Final Boss on a lesser extend, that fight I had to cheat to actually complete, and in general felt a bit odd).

The actual endings of all the routes I think are great too. I will not spoil any of them, but I highly suggest you do all three of them. Hell, make a backup of your save too so you can go back to them, too.

If you're wondering how the music is, while I would not call it better than Toby Fox's own compositions, it is very very high up there. The game similarly with its art iterates on what Undertale previously established, and the music ends up sounding not just really damn good, but also familiar yet different at the same time.

In general, the decision to stick to what Undertale established without delving too much into what Deltarune added in is also a very nice touch, and helps give the game more of the feeling that it's meant to be a prequel to the game. Whether or not I consider it one is something I can't really answer in this review. Maybe once it shimmers.

When it comes to fanworks there can never truly be one "truth". It's almost always something different, shaped different, acting different. This game is no exception.

The ultimate pro I can give this game at the end of the day is that it feels like the most "professional" out of all the fangames that have come out as of recently. If you told me this thing was on Steam I would not bat an eye.

I don't believe there will ever be an Undertale/Deltarune related fan project that will make me have a similar experience as the official games. To me that feels like an impossible standard to achieve.

Undertale Yellow, however, has gotten pretty damn close.

A lot of these fangames die out before they can be properly finished. I never doubted that this would release, but seeing it actually come out is a feeling that's very difficult to describe in words. The moment it released I wasted zero time booting it up. I beat the entire thing in just two sittings.

This is not a perfect game. In an ideal timeline, everything I've mentioned ends up reworked one way or another. Obviously this is not something I'm going to hope on, though. After seven entire years in development, I cannot blame any of these devs for wanting to finally move on.

Hell, seven years, that by itself also feels unbelievable.

I could go on, but this silly excuse of a review is already longer than it needs to be.

Hats off to everyone who helped make this game. I will be thinking about it for years to come for sure.

"Let justice be done."

Mandatory to listen to this on loop while reading

The Last Promise is one of those rare fangames with such a legacy to it that it might as well be counted amongst the official series. To the casual observer, that legacy is just the scene where the protagonist gives an edgy speech about handling the weight of death and kills a bunch of knights while a Sonic 06 midi plays. But to those too far gone into FE communities, it's seen as an technically impressive feat that, especially for a time where FE rom hacking was in its infancy and even more especially when you realize it was made primarily by a teenager. It is not an understatement to say that the current FE hacking scene owes its existence to this game. Playing it and checking off other FE games you unironically prefer it to in the same way a military sniper checks down their kids is a time honored rite of passage. I've seen a fair bit of people echo the sentiment that it's better than all three of the official GBA FEs and while Sacred Stones has too much personal significance for me to fully agree, I absolutely can see where these people are coming from.
Mechanically, it doesn't do anything particularly unique among other FEs. It's just a really good example of the enemy phase focused gameplay associated with 7-9. At its best, you get creative maps like Chapter 12, a Thracia style escape map balanced around having limited resources at your disposal, Chapter 5x, the rare defense map that's actually good, and Chapter 27, a map with gimmick so good that Engage may or may not have ripped it off a decade later. At its worst, you have to deal with a couple long and boring maps which are nowhere near the worst ones official FE games have churned out.
Narratively, it's a mix of genuinely cool stuff and stuff that's ironically funny. Whereas most pre-3DS FE games try to use prose that fits a medieval setting, The Last Promise is written with a bluntness that feels "online" for lack of a better term. This results in a lot of scenes taking on a more comedic tone than intended: the infamous Sonic 06 midi speech, the earlygame chapter where Siegfried gets mad at some random village for not having a milita in a way that can only be described as the former being portrayed as the Chad and the latter being portrayed as the Soyjak, and a major boss who's so edgy that his description reads "Plagued by a hatred for anything that lives, he is 'the Blood Reaper.'" But still, there is a fair bit of genuinely compelling stuff here. The prevailing dynamic between Siegfried and Kelik both being bound to a promise they made because of the death of a respective loved one but the former being an idealist who carelessly rushes into battle and the latter being more aware of his material conditions and working within them, at the cost of having a hard time trusting most people. Both learn and grow from each other as seen in the opening of Chapter 23 and a subsequent optional talk conversation where they get genuine and emotionally vulnerable with each other and their dynamic with each other culminates in an awesome climax. It's nothing groundbreaking but it's impressive for a teenager and I'd put it above most FE stories (low bar admittedly).
However, what really makes Last Promise stand out as special isn't so much any individual aspect mechanically or narratively but rather the end of an era it represents. The patch completing the main story was released on August 17th, 2012, just four months after the Japanese release of Awakening and six months before the Awakening release of said game. The Last Promise feels like a time capsule of when FE was seen as this niche thing that you played for the mystique of a game where characters can actually die and not a mainstream seller of millions of copies that you played because you wanted to date and/or fuck the characters. There's so much little things that give me anemoia for FE communities I was never in, be it Siegfried's personal weapon Nothung harkening back to a time where calling a unit a "mage-killer" wouldn't cause you to get laughed out of the discussion, the character portraits being collaborative effort by multiple FE forum users, and the use of bit crushed OSTs of more niche RPGs like Valkyrie Profile and Ys hammering that this was when most people saw FE as just like those games. Playing The Last Promise a decade after its release gave me a feeling of discovery that I haven't had with new FE games for a long time.
Is The Last Promise a masterpiece either mechanically or artistically that's worthy of a 9/10? Probably not but review scores are bullshit and shouldn't be seen as anything grander than "I like this game this much." The Last Promise just has an indescribable aura to it that transcends traditional quality. Maybe being an FE fan for this long has done too much damage to me mentally and these paragraphs seem incomprehensible to normal human beings idfk.

After 100%ing the game and getting absolutely everything it had to offer, I can safely say that it is by far one of the best sequels I’ve had the pleasure of playing. Whether or not it surpasses the original is something that can be debated on but I find it to be easily on par.
The storytelling and characterization this time around goes for a more subtler approach compared to the original and relies on character interactions and the way these evolve throughout the game, which ties into its main theme: identity. If OG TWEWY was about how relationships can change and affect the individual, then NEO TWEWY is the opposite in that it’s about how individual change affects that person's relationships. On the surface, they might seem like the same thing, but they’re really not because it’s through this lens that you’re able to see how the characters evolve and change, with our main character Rindo being the perfect examples of this.

Rindo’s an almost painfully realistic depiction of your average teenager: a guy that has no confidence in himself and the decisions he makes and tries to pass off his responsibilities onto other people whenever he gets the chance to. He’s quiet, reserved, and very closed off, only ever truly opening up to his friend Swallow, and you can see this constantly when you peer into his head and observe how he neurotically commentates on every move he or someone else does. He also has the tendency to take the people around him for granted. In some ways, he’s lot like Neku in the sense that he’s cut himself off from other people but whereas Neku actively rejected other people, Rindo just doesn’t care to get close to them. Even when their team needed more people so they could survive just one week, Rindo preferred relying on the skills Sho had already shown them rather than even trying to meet Nagi, and he might not’ve recruited her if not for him trying to avoid having her Dive into his head again. There’s also how he didn’t confide into his teammates about his time travel abilities until Sho dragged it out in the open for the others to know about. To Rindo, following along with who he already knew while not confiding in them kept him safe and able to just slip through life without having to worry. In that sense, I honestly feel that his arc is more organic and fluid compared to Neku’s and I say this as someone who loves Neku’s character arc. As the game goes on, he learns to takes charge, listens to his teammates fully, seeks and reaches out to people, and overpasses his aversion of going towards people to make the first connection. He’s actually the one willing to do the first step and remind people of what’s at stake, instead of being lead around on a whim by others.
Over the course of the game/Game, Rindo grows from someone not deciding anything to avoid the responsibility of a bad outcome and bristling when called out on that, to someone becoming brave enough to fully undertake the weight of such decisions, willing to risk himself in a bit more and as a leader, and fully expressing his opinion about things and plans instead of just poking holes into others’ ideas and appropriating their advices as his like he did with certain influences in his life.

You get to see this progression for most of the other characters in the game, with Shoka in particular being one of the best written characters across both TWEWY games in my opinion thanks to her characterization and the subtleties in her actions. That’s not to say this approach is perfect as the pacing can be pretty slow at times and some characters could’ve definitely benefitted by having more screentime but overall, I still found that NEO had a valuable message and theme to deliver in spite of it all.

Next up is the combat and hoo boy do I have a lot to say about it. It most definitely isn’t perfect, with its issues mostly boiling down to the lower enemy variety compared to the original (which had its fair share of recolors as well, mind you) and the camera being an annoyance at some points but by God, they somehow nailed the combat and it’s honestly tied with the original as one of my favorite JRPG battle systems. This time around, each character is mapped to a button to the controller (you can switch around which characters has what pin so it isn’t set in stone for which character can use a certain pin). Each attack type in the game has a condition that requires you to “Drop the Beat”, basically a combo finisher that’s tacked onto each pin and they each have their own variations. For example, some will have you inflicting status ailments on enemies, others will have you launching enemies in the air or into walls and some will have you piledriving them into the ground and so on and so forth. You do this in order to gradually build your Groove meter and unleash Mashups, which are 15 different elemental attacks that each have their own unique effect and can be activated and used on the battle field while you’re doing combos, such as summoning a giant gravitational ball of energy to suck enemies in, covering the ground with ice spikes that freeze enemies on contact and can have you bounce them around on the spikes for additional damage, stopping time to freeze absolutely everything to place, and more. There are pins with special abilities that reward you greatly when you set certain combos up right, whether it’s using knockdown pins to activate Grave Marker’s finisher, using launcher pins to increase the power of aerial pins such as Leo Armo or Meteor Strike, using chain pins to entangle enemies and increase the power of Drift Tackle or Swift Strike pins and more.

You have a wide variety of options that range from straight attacks, wide attacks, knockbacks, launchers (and following launchers), knockdowns, quick safe attacks, slow high investment attacks in exchange for higher damage/combo opportunities, repositioning attacks, crowd AoEs and more. You also have options for ranged attacks (with bullets, lasers, sweeping shockwaves, rockets for differing effects), charge attacks, staggering enemies and dispersing crowds, repositioning (enemies and yourself), multi-hit and freezing enemies, planting mines, and more.

On top of all of this, each pin has different attack speeds, damage outputs, ranges, and special utilities, which encourages you to mix and match in order to find the best possible combination for you and equip a deck that is highly synergized. Even low-powered pins end up being useful in the lategame thanks to quick reboot time compared to the higher damaging types, which is also great for building up Groove faster and getting those 6x Mashups, making for an incredibly balanced system for the most part.

Any good action game worth its salt rewards good positioning and NEO does that and then some and even expands on it compared to the original in multiple ways, both in regard to how you can lay down traps to catch Noise off guard and how you can utilize Mashups in extending your combos or take down enemies quickly. This also applies to how pins work as well.

Take how Massive Hit targets enemies for example. If you line it up just right, you can catch multiple enemies in your line of fire while you're on your way to kick the target into next week or up into the sky. Same thing also applies to Assassin Strike and I actually used this trick to stun multiple enemies at the same time. There's also some cool stuff that you can pull off with Patrol Rounds. The thing about them is how they ALWAYS come back to you after you launch them and if you position yourself to have the Patrol Round come back at you in a specific way by running to a spot, you can catch multiple enemies in the arc as the rounds makes their way towards you. This method also makes taking down Chameleon Noise a breeze since they're usually right by enemies and when you target the Noise next to them, they tend to get caught in the crossfire, which makes them easy to spot. Grenade Launcher, Patrol Round, Psychic Shotgun, Storm, and Diffusion Beam pins are especially useful for this.

Another cool thing about NEO is how even pins with the same Psych archetype actually have differing ways to make them stand apart mechanically.
For example, the Patrol Round pins each have different arcs that effect how they return towards you and impact enemies.
Cony x Cony (the Gravity variant) shoots out 5 different boomerangs and come back to you as five while Stop the Music (Burst variant you win from Scramble Slam) shoots out 3 different boomerangs but come back to you as one.
On paper, this might make Stop the Music sound worse but you have to keep their Beatdrop conditions in mind. Cony x Cony requires for an enemy/boss to be knocked down to the ground and/or launched in order for you to activate its Beatdrop whereas Stop the Music just has you hitting the enemy with the explosion it activates in order to get the Beatdrop. Little stuff like this can have an impact on how you approach combat when it comes to the bosses and mob design and it's like this for a lot of pins in the game, which I appreciate.

All in all, it’s a very robust and fun battle system with a lot of depth to its various mechanics and the bosses show these aspects off quite nicely, providing fun and unique mechanics of their own as well as a decent challenge if you’re fighting on the higher difficulties. A lot of people are under the impression that button-mashing is the optimal strategy and while that can probably get you through the main game on the lower difficulties, they fail to consider these factors:
-Noise have built-in forced retaliation (think revenge values from Kingdom Hearts.) The enemies will flash yellow, while during this, the damage they received, during combos after the fact, multiplies the enemy attack by how much damage was done to it, then it will flash red and instantly counter attack you with the damages built up in its system. The system is different for a few enemies but will instantly begin the moment they flash yellow. Which means that just button mashing can get you killed, especially when you’re engaging in long chain battles and the revenge values become far more frequent throughout each round.
-There are multiple pin set-ups that highly reward you for timing your combos right in order to build up the most Groove in one go, especially when you unlock the Beatdrop sweetspot mechanic later on that can increase your Groove intake when hitting the Beatdrop in a certain spot (which also differs depending on the pin)
-Ememy design has a decent amount of variety, forcing you to think about what sort of pins and threads to bring into battle as there’s not really one deck that makes short work of every enemy. The dinos, mammoths, and birds are prime examples of these
-Just mashing the buttons all at once will leave you unable able to properly counterattack against particularly troublesome enemies and will most likely lead to you dying multiple times
-The game itself ranks you on how much time you’ve taken playing through a chain as well as how much damage you’ve taken overall, incentivizing you to get better at the mechanics as higher rankings leads to higher PP intake, which is incredibly handy for leveling up and evolving pins.

Another thing I want to talk about is the music and man, they absolutely nailed it yet again. Much like the original, NEO covers a large variety of genres while also going for it’s own distinct vibe at the same time. Whereas the original went for a mix of J-pop, disco, and J-rock, with some stray metal, piano, and rap here and there, NEO goes for a more balanced mix of J-rock and metal, with more rap and pop mixed into tracks with heavier sections, as well as a greater emphasis on mashups, electric instruments, and blended-up and crunchier versions of old songs. That’s not to say it doesn’t have its own fair share of genre variety, however, as the game also contains various genres such as liquid DnB, techno, acoustic, club, drum n bass, power pop, symphonic nu-metal, and more. On top of that, the songs in NEO are much more closely tied to the themes of the game and the progression of the characters, with some even cleverly foreshadowing character details that get revealed later on, such as We’re Losing You and Shibuya Survivor. One thing in particular that I want to talk about in regards to the soundtrack is the inclusion of Soundsurfing and how much I love it’s implementation. Not only is it a clever way to speed up overworld traversal and make traversing through Shibuya a breeze, it’s gives you additional Groove intake bonuses that carry over to a round, which is an incredible use of gameplay mechanics synergizing well with one another. On top of that, Soundsurfing gives almost every song in the game additional and unique percussive elements to spice up the soundtrack even more, giving the music even more variety, which is genuinely impressive as hell. And lastly, it adds up to one incredible usage in the final boss fight.

All-in-all, NEO is a fantastic game and a more than worthy successor to one of the best games on the DS and I tip my hat off to the devs for managing to create another compelling experience even after all of these years.

And with that, I bid you adieu.

“As we go about our lives, we touch people, we see people, and interact with them; and in doing so we feel many things. Sometimes we make others happy, sometimes we hurt them, we sympathize, and we disagree. In the midst of this, we learn that people’s thoughts and feelings are not a one-way street.” - Kazuki Takahashi, creator of Yu-Gi-Oh!

I’ll be upfront, writing a review for this game is one of the hardest things I’ve ever attempted to do as a writer. Writing about this game has left me stuck in a place where I don’t know how well I can properly express it. Originally, I was planning on doing a massive overview of every aspect that the game had to offer. I wanted to go over its art direction, the character designs, the fantastic soundtrack, its unique and innovative gameplay systems, and its masterful storytelling and character work. In fact, I have multiple google docs of my attempt to do that, and I’m still really proud of what I wrote there. The point of the matter is that I wanted to do something that could do my favorite game of all time justice, something that would put everything else I’ve written on this site to shame. But once the time came to get down everything I could about the story, words… failed me. This isn’t the first time I’ve run into this issue, I’ve tried to write a massive review of Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony, another game I hold incredibly close to my heart, and the sheer scope of that was something that collapsed on me. But this felt different, what I was trying to write just felt off about it. It’s only now that it feels like I realized what was truly going wrong with my writing for this game. It didn’t feel like I was writing to express my passion for the game like I wanted to, it felt like I was writing to prove myself. To prove that I can keep up with friends around me that were able to write longform pieces just as well as, if not better than me. To prove that the game had so many masterful elements to it, and that people around me who were tearing it down or underwhelmed more than I expected were missing what made it truly special. That line of thinking sort of put me in a rut of writing in general, which just piled on a number of things going on in my life that were putting me in a really rough spot emotionally. After seeing a couple of conversations of people having similar struggles writing about their favorite games, it helped me realize that I wasn’t really seeing what I should’ve been doing, just writing about what the game really means to me.

In a way, exploring this game set me on my own emotional journey, sort of like everyone else running through those weeks in Shibuya, enduring things that would encourage them to close themselves off, doubt themselves, do what comes naturally. In that sense, more than anything else I could write about in some 10+ page paper, the most important thing I can say about my relationship with TWEWY is that I can see a piece of myself in all of the main characters. In Shiki, I can see my struggles with constantly comparing myself to my peers and a lack of faith in who I really am. In Beat, I can see some of my own self-destructive tendencies and my own failure of being someone those closest to me can look up to. Even in Joshua, I can see how I allow myself to justify and feed into some intrusive thoughts and flawed outlooks I have in life. Trying to analyze everyone in this is like staring into shards of a mirror with a reflection that stares more deeply back at me as I put the pieces together. And at the center of it, the piece that shows the clearest reflection of me… is Neku.

On the surface, Neku is… a total dick. He’s pretty rude, closes himself off from everyone, and looks down upon the very idea of opening up. I think a lot of people interpret this at the surface level, as him being an asshole who goes through an arc of not being an asshole. However, that’s not the Neku I really see, and especially not the part I see in myself. Beyond his intense snark and attitude, I don’t see someone who’s disgusted by the idea of becoming friends and getting close to people, I see someone who’s scared of opening up to others and the risks that entails. Putting yourself out there is a pretty scary prospect, it makes you more vulnerable to people who don’t have that kind of respect for you, who want to use you for their own gain, or potentially leaving you empty if they’re gone. What he says to Shiki after the climax of day 4 doesn’t feel like him trying to make a “gotcha!” moment out of a tragic situation, he’s letting out a good chunk of his insecurities in the only way he really knows how. I wouldn’t say I’ve struggled with that quite to the degree that Neku seems to, but it’s an aspect I pretty deeply resonate with.

From the way I’ve been writing about this so far, you might think that the main piece that makes it connect with me is that they go through a lot of the same struggles that I do. While that’s definitely a part of it, what I think makes it truly special is seeing the light that enters their lives as they do take the chance to open up and put themselves out there. When Neku notices that something’s up with Shiki and allows her to open up about everything she’s been holding in, it really hits him. It gives him the revelation that all of this fear and anxiety he keeps bottled up, it’s something that all sorts of people go through. Experiencing that kind of realization for himself is the big thing that really sets him on this path of growth, that makes him really learn to care about everyone around him, despite a prevalent week 2 character’s efforts to drive him back into his old mindset. Seeing him break out of his hardened shell and connect with others, most notably with how he applies what he learned when talking to Beat, it’s… beautiful. It’s beautiful to see how much he’s grown through his interactions with others, especially with how human everyone in this game feels. Even games I’ve played before and after that try similar things don’t strike that chord with me quite as much because of how real TWEWY’s interactions feel.

I frequently wonder if I would ever really be in the same place that I am now without the people closest to me, especially those I’ve met online that have made me really come to understand some of my values and introduced me to wonderful experiences that I’ll treasure forever. I feel like the brightest parts of my current life come from how I was able to put myself out there and form connections and couldn’t have otherwise. If seeing those pieces of myself running around in that city for those few weeks showed me anything, it’s that people aren’t as simple as what you see on the surface, and the way to look beyond that is to expand your world.

There's something amusing about seeing a lot of big fans of Persona 5 in my circle rag on Persona 4 constantly when, in reality, the core issues of both of their stories are near-identical. They both have very formulaic story structures that wear out their welcome by the time they do start shaking things up, they have fairly weak casts that are severely underwritten past their initial arcs, and they're both very non-committal or even contradictory with presenting their main themes. If this is the case, then why do I view Persona 4 in a somewhat more positive light while Persona 5 gets worse for me as time goes on, despite the fact that the lowest lows of 4 are far worse than 5’s? Well, not only does Persona 4 have its own unique strengths that 5 fails to capture, but these direct parallels in shortcomings give me the impression that Atlus learned practically nothing from the shortcomings of 4 after a near-decade, aside from slightly getting the memo that homophobia might not actually be that funny. (Emphasis on slightly)

The main cast is probably the worst out of any modern Persona cast. Not to say that they’re all irredeemably terrible, but they just become incredibly flat once their specific arc is concluded, which makes it even more damning when characters like Haru don’t even have that to their name with how poorly implemented Morgana’s arc is. It doesn’t really take long for them to neatly slot into their respective archetypes without branching out much beyond them. Ann probably gets this the worst, she doesn’t really get to go beyond being “the girl” of the group when she had so much going on during Kamoshida’s arc. I think a better approach would’ve been to limit the cast just to the initial trio. Their dynamic in the early game is very strong and could totally carry a whole game on its own. Yusuke felt pretty out of place once he fully joined the Phantom Thieves, and the sidelining of growth for each party member becomes very apparent once Makoto joins. I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch to say it would work, with how often the series tries to push a “main trio” of their parties. Even Persona 4 directly did it, when it arguably started off with more of a quartet than a trio. I don’t know how it would affect the rest of the game, but what I do know is that the characters do need a lot more than they get, especially in a series that prides itself on interpersonal relationships like Persona does.

I don’t see myself as someone that’s too harsh regarding the “Show don’t tell” critique. I like a good chunk of media that are very in your face about their messages and themes. The point where I do feel it’s right to make that critique is when it feels like a piece of media is talking down to me, which is absolutely the case with Persona 5. It never trusts the player to come to their own conclusions about what they’re being presented, so it feels the need to spell the meaning behind every interaction out in meticulous detail so that a 3 year old can keep up with it. For example, there’s a reoccurring puzzle throughout the Pyramid of Wrath, (Which is my least favorite stretch of the whole game for a myriad of reasons that I don’t intend to go into) where you put together hieroglyphs that depict parts of the palace ruler’s past, and their relationship with a close family member. I thought it was a cool way to let the player piece together the trauma that they endured, especially with how that comes together with the palace’s boss, but every single time you clear one, the characters explain exactly what it means and tell you exactly how to feel. It’s really frustrating when it feels like it has to spell out every single interaction in the entire game. I feel like you could shave off 10 hours from the game just by giving it a tighter script, it’s unnecessary bloat that does nothing but dampen the storytelling. It’s even more baffling that it has this approach when ultimately, it doesn’t really have anything to say until the Royal arc hits. It’s trying to tackle much more grandiose themes of society and rebellion, but it always feels like it’s only putting a single toe into an incredibly deep pool. Let me be clear, I don’t need the PTs to start picking apart every aspect of each corrupt system in the nation. I feel like too many critiques go down that route, especially since it does place more of an emphasis on personal conflict. But even so, it could do a lot better with acknowledging it than the “All’s well that ends well, right?” approach we’re given. That’s honestly my biggest problem with the modern series. It’s so non-commital with presenting these potentially interesting ideas that the stick it’s hitting the issues it tackles seems to be more like a damp pool noodle.

As I’m writing this, I’m noticing a major pattern between each of this game’s aspects. I really like everything about it on paper. The general theme of rebellion that has sparks throughout the whole game, that’s cool! Too bad the ways it explores that theme are pretty paper-thin, even with the social links that usually thrive with conveying themes just as well as if not better than the main plot. Having social links teach you more specific abilities to use throughout the game for a sense of growth, that’s cool! Too bad that the way they’re balanced makes them range from practically meaningless to game-breakingly powerful. Every single addition to the game’s combat, the baton passes, the guns, all of that is cool! Too bad none of the game is balanced around it and it makes even a normal playthrough one where you’re stupidly overpowered. I think this is why Persona 5 fails for me in ways that the other games in the series don’t quite as much. As much as 3 and 4 had their low points and downsides, both of those did have consistent strengths that they were able to bring out exceptionally well. For every great and fresh idea that P5 has that isn’t strictly related to its presentation, there’s something else that ends up completely undercutting it.

In a way, that’s why despite how fun it can be to dunk on Atlus and this game, I don’t like the distaste that I have for it. It does have some genuinely fascinating ideas, I can see a spark of something truly spectacular trapped inside of this. The Royal arc proves this, it’s a fantastic piece of work that’s only weaknesses are the foundation that it’s built upon. If Atlus really is capable of being a tour de force in video game storytelling and can capitalize on the strengths of Royal’s writing, then Persona 6 could be the first game in the series that I really like without any caveats. All I need is proof that modern Atlus has that bite in its narratives, which it’s mostly consistently proven to not have over this decade. I want to believe that Atlus can pull through, and bring us one last surprise…

(Also maybe don’t have a prominent party member that plays into every single autism stereotype in the book at maximum capacity with the core point being “ooh she’s such a quirky gamer girl!” Cool? Cool.)

the first twewy was a fruit of its age: a game about people trying to connect with each other, understating how bounds are importants and learning to accept themselves. settled in shibuya, the epicenter of japanese youth of it’s époque and pretty much adopting all of its aesthetics too: it’s emo, it’s stylish, it sounds like japanese pop, rap, it has scratches, it isn’t “clean”, it’s urban. even in a nintendo ds game, is a city that felt alive, not only for the care they had with the aesthetics but also because you could scan people’s minds and see their feelings, worries and experiences while living in such a city that shibuya was. it was also a game that could only exist on the nintendo ds: a game about utilizing the ds’ two screens to sustain its message. you played, in combat, controlling both neku and his partner of the week, utilizing your stylus and your d-pad to fight enemies on both “sides” at the same time -- basically you had to take care not only of yourself, but also of your partner, too, and when you were in sync, you could unleash an special power. it was weird, for sure, but it worked well enough to what the game was trying to say. yeah, there’s a mobile and a switch version today -- the last one being, basically, the canon one that leads to this game story -- but the original intent still is the ds one.

now, 14 years later, the context is different: people still have the same problems, but the gravity of this is changed by the internet. your presence online is more valuable than yours offline: is easier to form bounds, since you can find your own niche just searching for some keyword on twitter. is not that people are not afraid of being themselves, is more that they can be anyone today at a level that it’s true identity is messier than their own closets. today, the people you scan don’t care anymore about which CD he should buy at tower records or which clothes she should wear on a date. today they care about which CD is worth enough to be physically buyed and which boy is prettier enough on instagram to be worth a date. neo: the world ends with you is still a game about the importance of connections. not exactly about a protagonist that does not have any, but about a protagonist that must know how important they are. you now play with a whole team instead of a partner and each button of your controller represents both a pin and a player. while it seems strange, it’s actually a show of geniality: it gives the same feeling that you should adjust itself with the most comfortable and ergonomic pins, just like the DS gave, but now in a dualshock 4. you have plenty of options to customize your gameplay and it’s basically “what if control scheme was not a quality of life but instead a central game mechanic”. it is addicting too, you know? testing new pins, seeing they evolve, comparing their animation speed and which one has less friction. it feels really great, principally because you soon unlock a mechanic known as “drop the beat”, where you gain a percentage in order to do a special move. there’s a lot going on in this game’s combat and while some enemies are not That Fun, there are some great bosses at kingdom hearts 2 level of flashy-lasers-gimmicky-thing and overall quality and necessity of mastery of it’s system.

thematically, as i said, is still about the importance of connections, but more about understanding that your friends really does matter for you. instead of the fear of knowing new people, the fear now is of missing those people -- what if your best friend just gets erased? the question about accepting your true identity is still here, too. characters wearing masks to distant themselves from who they really are -- they are in fear of being genuine. what if no one likes it? sending a sticker saying “i love you” on telegram is easier than, actually, saying “i love you” in flesh and blood. you can see how those teenagers are influenced by how the internet treats relationships, in both bad and good ways, and also how the overall communication and relation-between-people have changed since the first the world ends with you released. it also talks about The System and how shit it is, where Higher Classes has shit privileges and can do whatever the shit they want to -- they are on the top, after all. having many teams fighting each other, directly and indirectly, trying to survive a game where it seems impossible to win, is pretty much how capitalism works: sometimes you just have to take care of your own group rather than help everyone in order to survive -- and this sucks. “systematic world, killing me” etc. this system, formed by old rules that doesn’t matter for the ones on top, is also what kills the chance of the youth to express themselves better and be able to have healthier relationships. you can’t just go and blame the one on top, so you just keep quiet. you can’t just go and tell how bad you feel, so you just keep quiet. you can’t just go and tell how much something matters to you, its cringe, so you just keep quiet. in the end, either die quietly or try to change things: if you could turn back time, would you do it right? and even if you don’t, would you mind doing it right, now? going against the system? trying to be yourself a little more? trying to understand others a little more? trying to show love a little more? the world ends with you, so you better change your fate.