this little shitfaced monkey has the audacity to, first off, be so curious it became his identity. which i just find ridiculous. curious about what? he's not smart enough to understand anything anyways. but secondly this little ape has the worst double jump in all of gaming. you gotta press the jump button twice before it registers, you can't double jump at a point during the first jump you gotta commit immediately. I'm sorry everyone but curious george on ps2 isnt that good. i know that's hard to take in and im sorry

just like with IV Apocalypse, the story is dogshit - but the game is really fun and from the promo materials (and every other Atlus game as of late) i didn't have any high expectations for the writing. still, its narrative is unique in that it doesn't even fucking try - this game never once puts any focus on its characters or story in a meaningful way and whether that's good or bad is up to you.

combat's peak SMT, mechanically solid as hell and incredibly satisfying. demon fusion is the most sensible its ever been and the replacement of smirk for magatsuhi is a welcome change. Nahobino feels pretty good, the combat's at its best, and the art and music are a massive step up from the previous two games - even if some of the designs are dogshit. sadly, SMT V's world is very uninspired, content with just doing something akin to blasted Tokyo the entire way through with little points of interest or unique areas. save for two dungeons, it's just the desert but with a different colour each time. paired with the nonexistent story, i felt like my time with SMT V blended together despite its runtime. which is pretty fucking lame. the game never throws any curveballs your way, if you play the first five hours you've basically played the entire thing.

it isn't as atmospheric as Nocturne, its world design is lacking and is largely forgettable, but SMT V is a really fun time in terms of gameplay, which is its major focus. Shin Megami Tensei V is a game that probably won't stick with you in the ways Digital Devil Saga or Nocturne do, but it's a comfortable and breezy experience i had a good time with. though it could've been so much more.

love this game - but some of the characters and writing feel hollow. a departure from the 'young kids adventure' story of EarthBound, where the charm comes from the world and its writing and not your party which are more or less just blank slates, Mother 3 actually has characters and a story with a written main cast. But they're only marginally more written than they were before, I felt like there were a lot of missed opportunities for characters like Kumatora, Lucas, and Duster to really grow as characters. They hardly develop or even really interact over the course of the narrative and it felt a little dissonant contrasted with the plot, which is actually very present and very well written this time around. like you get introduced to these characters with setups and personalities but then they never even talk after that point, it's lame. i wanted to know more about them!!!! I can't help but think of DELTARUNE and how its cast seamlessly develop through their interactions, I think that's something this game would've benefitted from. also, uh, the magypsies. dunno how i feel about those guys. i see why people like em cuz they're ultimately heroic figures but i really don't like that awful fucking sexual assault 'joke' they have, i don't think they were written with any offensive intent but they're defo a lil iffy for a game like this. none of this stops the emotional beats from hitting like a fucking freight train. that ending hurts.

very cozy, very magical - but it loses steam as it goes on. probably best exemplified with Freya, the cool rat lady who was my favourite for a bit, who has plot relevance and her own agency in the narrative which is then promptly thrown into a volcano as she is relegated to complete obscurity within her own game. She's just one of the characters that happens to but the entire game feels like that as it goes on. In its back half, FFIX feels more like its going on out of obligation. there's a lot of creative, fun setpieces towards the beginning of the game like with the entire opening stretch, the hunting festival, the black mage village. contrasted to the entire ending segment and final boss which feel less like a creative decision and more of the devs throwing their arms in the air like 'whatever, let's just get this done.'


also the trance mechanic is stinky