SketchItCat
2024
Vanillaware must live on.
Unicorn Overlord is a complete game where one can feel the ambition at every turn. So much ambition in fact, that there are some aspects that needed to be cut as the game was well documented as going over budget like most Vanillaware games. While these parts are things that I wish I could have seen as I was quite gripped by this game, I also understand why they needed to be cut and the game is still worth its price tag either way.
While the story is not as complicated or in depth as 13 Sentinels, there is still a bare bones enough story to lead the characters from start to finish, the characters themselves being quite enjoyable and a few of the twists getting me. I would compare it to some Fire Emblem games, where it is mostly a story around conquering set from a sympathetic angle that just rarely brings up the consequences of war. Despite what some crazy people online will say, the localization was actually quite excellent as well.
The rapports in the game are what serve as ways to see character interaction, and after viewing all of them, I can say that while there are a fair amount of good ones that range from very funny, cute, to tragic with some great prose, some typos do come up in the script and they could be stronger. Part of this I find is particularly since the game can struggle to explore other relationships with characters beyond Alain. There are still a few good standouts such as Sharon and Ochlys and Aramis and Primm, it often feels like a lot of it is afraid to let characters get too close due to the Ring of the Maiden system.
As a part of this game, the player can marry another party member, and this is where I see a lot of the flaws with the character writing in the game. While you can marry anyone, all the male characters you can choose do not get treated in the same way as the intended women characters. And even amongst the women characters only a handful are taken very seriously which can be indicated by completing a character's rapport after Alain is already engaged with the ring and seeing if he says, "Twas but a dream, it didn't happen. I wouldn't think of cheating." or not. If he does, it shows the rapport was intended to be romantic, and if it doesn't, then it wasn't meant to be taken romantically. I found around ten women units where the line came up, but it never came up once for men which is a shame.
The game has a lot of variance however in that system though, along with others. There are many points where the player can challenge the final encounter early on, and similar to Chrono Trigger, if done at different times it will result in the ending sequence changing, but ultimately resulting in a bad ending due to the mechanics related to the ring of the maiden and ring of the unicorn as I mentioned before. Hence I do understand why they let you marry men despite not taking it seriously, because it is more of a gameplay mechanic than anything, since who you marry determines the ending sequence's final battle since the ring of the maiden and ring of the unicorn impart special skills when fully unlocked required to see the true good ending. They allow this since you have to use the two characters in the same unit, so this affords a player to pick someone for Alain purely for gameplay factors and having them be in the same unit as Alain which is understandable, but I wish they treated gay sexuality with more respect. Especially considering the implied sapphic characters in the game that are treated better.
Speaking of gameplay mechanics, I had found the option to spare or execute characters to feel contrived and meaningless. There is no risk of a character stabbing Alain in the back or being a mistake to spare, it ultimately just decides whether you get a unit or resources, and a unit will always be more valuable than resources. Even for characters you would think do not deserve to be spared, it is ultimately the right decision, which makes each of those decisions feeling hollow. For what it is worth though, the characters you do choose to spare do typically have pretty good rapports.
Which finally gets us into the heart of the gameplay, the battle system. Connecting to the rapport system, is the general battle system which is clearly where everything connects and becomes a beautiful interconnected web. Every character in the game has a set of unique skills based on their classes, which can be programmed with an in game decision tree to determine what a character does on their action. This works similarly to the Gambit system from FFXII, but in this case there are more limited options per character, but so many more different interactions to make it easy enough for a new player to make something passable, to a professional player properly taking advantage of this tree. Decisions are made using if statements which can be programmed with statements that are true or false and will only activate under certain conditions, such as only using a ranged attack if it is against a flying enemy, in which case if its not it will move to the next decision, to setting priorities like using magical attacks on armored units first. There is a large selection of conditions, and each move can receive two conditions each, making a rather large ability for a player to create specific AI for each of their units in the same way a programmer would. What makes this work beautifully and come together is how you can build units of up to 5 characters that battle an enemy set of 5 characters, with ten deployable armies you can control at once. This takes the strategy to a new level, and can be modified on the spot where you can see yourself the results of each change in AI, and see how it plays out in the gorgeous art style that had made Vanillaware famous. With well balanced weapons, shields and items with unique abilities to slowly upgrade your army and add complication to the strategies you employ, and improving rapport between your units so that they give each other better statistical upgrades, an overworld conquest system where you can get continuous rewards from stationing guards while having an expansive overworld to explore with side quests, it all comes together to make an addicting battle system for anyone interested in the SRPG genre.
As said, the art style is beautiful, and I lament on the team running out of budget, as once credits start to roll, you can see how many backgrounds that were never used in the story or rapports come up to show where each character has gone similar to other SRPGs. However, these backgrounds clearly were intended to be used with all the rapports which are unfortunately all on the overworld using the tiny sprites instead of the larger battle sprites. Which is a shame, and clearly a mark of the budget running out, as some of these backgrounds were nice, and it would have added a lot to many of these rapports if we could see the character models interacting instead of the overworld sprites.
The audio luckily did not suffer at all, with a number of beautiful tracks, great voice acting, and gripping sound effects that fit the game perfectly.
Ultimately there is so much good about this game that it has me longing for more, which is a shame since there are hints at what could have been if Vanillaware didn't run out of budget for this title. The lore entries in the journal make mention of things that barely come up in the final product and likely had to be cut, there are the rapports that could have taken place on the beautiful backdrops with all the unique character models they had, and more. Yet, what is here is undeniably a complete and wonderful SRPG. I only hope that Vanillaware is able to rightfully get rewarded for this, so their next project gets a larger budget.
Unicorn Overlord is a complete game where one can feel the ambition at every turn. So much ambition in fact, that there are some aspects that needed to be cut as the game was well documented as going over budget like most Vanillaware games. While these parts are things that I wish I could have seen as I was quite gripped by this game, I also understand why they needed to be cut and the game is still worth its price tag either way.
While the story is not as complicated or in depth as 13 Sentinels, there is still a bare bones enough story to lead the characters from start to finish, the characters themselves being quite enjoyable and a few of the twists getting me. I would compare it to some Fire Emblem games, where it is mostly a story around conquering set from a sympathetic angle that just rarely brings up the consequences of war. Despite what some crazy people online will say, the localization was actually quite excellent as well.
The rapports in the game are what serve as ways to see character interaction, and after viewing all of them, I can say that while there are a fair amount of good ones that range from very funny, cute, to tragic with some great prose, some typos do come up in the script and they could be stronger. Part of this I find is particularly since the game can struggle to explore other relationships with characters beyond Alain. There are still a few good standouts such as Sharon and Ochlys and Aramis and Primm, it often feels like a lot of it is afraid to let characters get too close due to the Ring of the Maiden system.
As a part of this game, the player can marry another party member, and this is where I see a lot of the flaws with the character writing in the game. While you can marry anyone, all the male characters you can choose do not get treated in the same way as the intended women characters. And even amongst the women characters only a handful are taken very seriously which can be indicated by completing a character's rapport after Alain is already engaged with the ring and seeing if he says, "Twas but a dream, it didn't happen. I wouldn't think of cheating." or not. If he does, it shows the rapport was intended to be romantic, and if it doesn't, then it wasn't meant to be taken romantically. I found around ten women units where the line came up, but it never came up once for men which is a shame.
The game has a lot of variance however in that system though, along with others. There are many points where the player can challenge the final encounter early on, and similar to Chrono Trigger, if done at different times it will result in the ending sequence changing, but ultimately resulting in a bad ending due to the mechanics related to the ring of the maiden and ring of the unicorn as I mentioned before. Hence I do understand why they let you marry men despite not taking it seriously, because it is more of a gameplay mechanic than anything, since who you marry determines the ending sequence's final battle since the ring of the maiden and ring of the unicorn impart special skills when fully unlocked required to see the true good ending. They allow this since you have to use the two characters in the same unit, so this affords a player to pick someone for Alain purely for gameplay factors and having them be in the same unit as Alain which is understandable, but I wish they treated gay sexuality with more respect. Especially considering the implied sapphic characters in the game that are treated better.
Speaking of gameplay mechanics, I had found the option to spare or execute characters to feel contrived and meaningless. There is no risk of a character stabbing Alain in the back or being a mistake to spare, it ultimately just decides whether you get a unit or resources, and a unit will always be more valuable than resources. Even for characters you would think do not deserve to be spared, it is ultimately the right decision, which makes each of those decisions feeling hollow. For what it is worth though, the characters you do choose to spare do typically have pretty good rapports.
Which finally gets us into the heart of the gameplay, the battle system. Connecting to the rapport system, is the general battle system which is clearly where everything connects and becomes a beautiful interconnected web. Every character in the game has a set of unique skills based on their classes, which can be programmed with an in game decision tree to determine what a character does on their action. This works similarly to the Gambit system from FFXII, but in this case there are more limited options per character, but so many more different interactions to make it easy enough for a new player to make something passable, to a professional player properly taking advantage of this tree. Decisions are made using if statements which can be programmed with statements that are true or false and will only activate under certain conditions, such as only using a ranged attack if it is against a flying enemy, in which case if its not it will move to the next decision, to setting priorities like using magical attacks on armored units first. There is a large selection of conditions, and each move can receive two conditions each, making a rather large ability for a player to create specific AI for each of their units in the same way a programmer would. What makes this work beautifully and come together is how you can build units of up to 5 characters that battle an enemy set of 5 characters, with ten deployable armies you can control at once. This takes the strategy to a new level, and can be modified on the spot where you can see yourself the results of each change in AI, and see how it plays out in the gorgeous art style that had made Vanillaware famous. With well balanced weapons, shields and items with unique abilities to slowly upgrade your army and add complication to the strategies you employ, and improving rapport between your units so that they give each other better statistical upgrades, an overworld conquest system where you can get continuous rewards from stationing guards while having an expansive overworld to explore with side quests, it all comes together to make an addicting battle system for anyone interested in the SRPG genre.
As said, the art style is beautiful, and I lament on the team running out of budget, as once credits start to roll, you can see how many backgrounds that were never used in the story or rapports come up to show where each character has gone similar to other SRPGs. However, these backgrounds clearly were intended to be used with all the rapports which are unfortunately all on the overworld using the tiny sprites instead of the larger battle sprites. Which is a shame, and clearly a mark of the budget running out, as some of these backgrounds were nice, and it would have added a lot to many of these rapports if we could see the character models interacting instead of the overworld sprites.
The audio luckily did not suffer at all, with a number of beautiful tracks, great voice acting, and gripping sound effects that fit the game perfectly.
Ultimately there is so much good about this game that it has me longing for more, which is a shame since there are hints at what could have been if Vanillaware didn't run out of budget for this title. The lore entries in the journal make mention of things that barely come up in the final product and likely had to be cut, there are the rapports that could have taken place on the beautiful backdrops with all the unique character models they had, and more. Yet, what is here is undeniably a complete and wonderful SRPG. I only hope that Vanillaware is able to rightfully get rewarded for this, so their next project gets a larger budget.
There is a good monster collecting game in here somewhere, but its mired by the games excessive faults.
This game just feels cheap, of course its a spinoff series, of which the spinoff series was always originally on handhelds so of course it would not stand toe to toe with the mainline Dragon Quest games. However the transition to the Switch was faulty at best, and a complete floundering at worst. The Switch is a weak console, and this game was not prepared for it, with frequent crashes that interrupted gametime (Only saved slightly due to the frequent auto-saving), environments on some later worlds being very drab, and endlessly reused music from other Dragon Quest games instead of relying on new tracks. This game feels like a disappointment.
The story is a semi-retelling of DQIV through the perspective of Psaro, a fan favorite villain of the series and the central villain of DQIV. Though, the telling of the story leaves a lot to be desired. Psaro only having a voice when capturing monsters and not having a voice in the story strips the player of being able to get into his mind since he can't speak, and the game tries to present multiple points where you choose what Psaro says, but every choice is an illusion since Psaro is a pre-established character and you cannot alter his story by doing things he wouldn't do. This can be confusing at many points as you have to get into a silent protagonist's head to figure out what the game wants you to do, but he never tells you and so you will say yes to a dialogue option, only to have characters berate you because Psaro actually meant the other option. This impacts the whole story as they then need to have an abundance of flashbacks that do nothing for the player but stand in for Psaro's background, because he can't just talk about it since he's silent. Most of the worlds have alright little self contained stories, but each world is disconnected and you only get the pay off way later in the game, as a result, you do 6 introductions, 6 midway points, and then 6 separate conclusions to each world. Culminating in finally the ending of the main story that is admittedly not bad with some homages to the DQIV party. But the rest of the game can just feel like a checklist of things to do.
Taking us into the gameplay, where it feels like the monster collecting section of the game is off. While the start of the game functions fine, leveling your monsters, fusing them to get higher power talents and getting more talent points from fusing, and then using your new powerful higher ranked monsters to tear up the competition, the end game ends up being miserable despite this. This is due to the fact that every time you fuse your monsters, they are reset to level 1, which would work well, but they all gain experience at roughly the same rate, with small adjustment changes like you'd see from Pokemon. This proves to be a problem, since later on, it feels very tiresome to fuse your A rank, S rank, and X rank monsters for what amounts to very little actual power difference compared to your B rank monsters, especially when you have to re-level them all the way up after fusing, when leveling at that point will take a lot of grinding to get back up to the levels required of you by that stage of the game since ranks don't impact their experience gain. The main concession then is metal slime hunting, which is based on luck, or using a guide to hunt them down which is using outside information to limit your grind. Similarly, some of the fusions requirements for A rank, S rank and X rank are very obtuse and lead to frustration in even getting some of your A rank, S rank and X rank monsters, requiring a lot of fusing and grinding for the hopes of getting some monsters that barely out-perform B rank monsters, and will be weaker at level 40 than your level 70 B rank monsters at that point. The game is then more enjoyable with using the fan created guides and I'd recommend that, but it seems the game would rather you do something else... Giving into paying for the DLC that helps your grind. It feels like the game is trying to push you toward it, beause unlike SMT you cannot resummon previously created monsters, BUT you can buy the DLC that lets you refight monsters you already have in your compendium to recruit. How kind to put this behind a paywall along with the gold and EXP farming zones. Not predatory at all.
All of these combined factors soured this game on me a lot. While the core monster raising, the strategy that comes from late game fights, and the idea behind the characters(Even if not executed well) kept me playing to the end, the game has too many flaws to rate it higher. 2.5/5.
This game just feels cheap, of course its a spinoff series, of which the spinoff series was always originally on handhelds so of course it would not stand toe to toe with the mainline Dragon Quest games. However the transition to the Switch was faulty at best, and a complete floundering at worst. The Switch is a weak console, and this game was not prepared for it, with frequent crashes that interrupted gametime (Only saved slightly due to the frequent auto-saving), environments on some later worlds being very drab, and endlessly reused music from other Dragon Quest games instead of relying on new tracks. This game feels like a disappointment.
The story is a semi-retelling of DQIV through the perspective of Psaro, a fan favorite villain of the series and the central villain of DQIV. Though, the telling of the story leaves a lot to be desired. Psaro only having a voice when capturing monsters and not having a voice in the story strips the player of being able to get into his mind since he can't speak, and the game tries to present multiple points where you choose what Psaro says, but every choice is an illusion since Psaro is a pre-established character and you cannot alter his story by doing things he wouldn't do. This can be confusing at many points as you have to get into a silent protagonist's head to figure out what the game wants you to do, but he never tells you and so you will say yes to a dialogue option, only to have characters berate you because Psaro actually meant the other option. This impacts the whole story as they then need to have an abundance of flashbacks that do nothing for the player but stand in for Psaro's background, because he can't just talk about it since he's silent. Most of the worlds have alright little self contained stories, but each world is disconnected and you only get the pay off way later in the game, as a result, you do 6 introductions, 6 midway points, and then 6 separate conclusions to each world. Culminating in finally the ending of the main story that is admittedly not bad with some homages to the DQIV party. But the rest of the game can just feel like a checklist of things to do.
Taking us into the gameplay, where it feels like the monster collecting section of the game is off. While the start of the game functions fine, leveling your monsters, fusing them to get higher power talents and getting more talent points from fusing, and then using your new powerful higher ranked monsters to tear up the competition, the end game ends up being miserable despite this. This is due to the fact that every time you fuse your monsters, they are reset to level 1, which would work well, but they all gain experience at roughly the same rate, with small adjustment changes like you'd see from Pokemon. This proves to be a problem, since later on, it feels very tiresome to fuse your A rank, S rank, and X rank monsters for what amounts to very little actual power difference compared to your B rank monsters, especially when you have to re-level them all the way up after fusing, when leveling at that point will take a lot of grinding to get back up to the levels required of you by that stage of the game since ranks don't impact their experience gain. The main concession then is metal slime hunting, which is based on luck, or using a guide to hunt them down which is using outside information to limit your grind. Similarly, some of the fusions requirements for A rank, S rank and X rank are very obtuse and lead to frustration in even getting some of your A rank, S rank and X rank monsters, requiring a lot of fusing and grinding for the hopes of getting some monsters that barely out-perform B rank monsters, and will be weaker at level 40 than your level 70 B rank monsters at that point. The game is then more enjoyable with using the fan created guides and I'd recommend that, but it seems the game would rather you do something else... Giving into paying for the DLC that helps your grind. It feels like the game is trying to push you toward it, beause unlike SMT you cannot resummon previously created monsters, BUT you can buy the DLC that lets you refight monsters you already have in your compendium to recruit. How kind to put this behind a paywall along with the gold and EXP farming zones. Not predatory at all.
All of these combined factors soured this game on me a lot. While the core monster raising, the strategy that comes from late game fights, and the idea behind the characters(Even if not executed well) kept me playing to the end, the game has too many flaws to rate it higher. 2.5/5.
2023
WitchSpring R had incredible potential and was an absolutely adorable and fun game, but through bloated content and too much melodrama, the game falls quickly from the heights the early hours of the game present.
The gameplay of WitchSpring R combine small amounts of alchemy, simple RPG combat, and overworld exploration to create an addictive gameplay loop that does not overstay its welcome for its gametime, with possibilities to defeat hard enemies early on with the right strategies, enough diversibility that different builds can range drastically, while also having satisfying progression from start to finish apart from the end game where one can be overpowered for everything except the final boss which will prove to challenge even those who grinded excessively.
Combined with its simple art style and music that accompany this, it fits in perfectly as a smaller RPG to enjoy with a childlike adorable story mimicking the style used for children's stories. However, that story begins to drag and grows tiresome very early, as repeating events around the second quarter of the game really slow down progression and cause the story to be stuck at Lalaque village, with a few more segments feeling similarly poorly paced. Too many characters of which some are not very important end up dividing the screen time too wide, especially with some of these elements being repeated too often with some of these characters. I feel a large portion of the middle section of this game could have been cut as it adds pointless melodrama and at some points make some characters feel nearly irredeemable despite their status at the end of the game where they are redeemed. Such as Livya who had done mean things to Pieberry one too many times before she redeems herself to the point the repetition was eyerolling in Lalaque village when combined with all the other repetitive cutscenes in that section of the game.
The characters for what its worth are fun and fulfill their purposes in this very whimsical and childlike tale well, and Pieberry works wonderfully as a lead character to lead this story while learning more about other characters and befriending everyone along the way. I liked many characters, from Livya the tsundere knight, Luna the frost witch, Ralph the merchant, to Vernstein the leader of the rebellion.
As WitchSpring R is a recreation of the first game of the series, I'd say it does an admirable job of presenting this series to new comers and sets up well for its sequels, it just sadly is mired by a lot of segments that slow it down far too much in the middle segment of the game. The first two chapters of this game feel wonderful and if only reviewing that section I would give it a 4/5 because that is how good of a start this game has for leading you into its magical world. Sadly, as it goes on the payoff while satisfying does not justify the bloat in the ending. WitchSpring R serves as a good entry point to alchemy games, and has its own unique style that is fun and entertaining. Definitely pick this game up on sale if you're interested, I know I'll be keeping an eye out if WitchSpring R2 is announced.
The gameplay of WitchSpring R combine small amounts of alchemy, simple RPG combat, and overworld exploration to create an addictive gameplay loop that does not overstay its welcome for its gametime, with possibilities to defeat hard enemies early on with the right strategies, enough diversibility that different builds can range drastically, while also having satisfying progression from start to finish apart from the end game where one can be overpowered for everything except the final boss which will prove to challenge even those who grinded excessively.
Combined with its simple art style and music that accompany this, it fits in perfectly as a smaller RPG to enjoy with a childlike adorable story mimicking the style used for children's stories. However, that story begins to drag and grows tiresome very early, as repeating events around the second quarter of the game really slow down progression and cause the story to be stuck at Lalaque village, with a few more segments feeling similarly poorly paced. Too many characters of which some are not very important end up dividing the screen time too wide, especially with some of these elements being repeated too often with some of these characters. I feel a large portion of the middle section of this game could have been cut as it adds pointless melodrama and at some points make some characters feel nearly irredeemable despite their status at the end of the game where they are redeemed. Such as Livya who had done mean things to Pieberry one too many times before she redeems herself to the point the repetition was eyerolling in Lalaque village when combined with all the other repetitive cutscenes in that section of the game.
The characters for what its worth are fun and fulfill their purposes in this very whimsical and childlike tale well, and Pieberry works wonderfully as a lead character to lead this story while learning more about other characters and befriending everyone along the way. I liked many characters, from Livya the tsundere knight, Luna the frost witch, Ralph the merchant, to Vernstein the leader of the rebellion.
As WitchSpring R is a recreation of the first game of the series, I'd say it does an admirable job of presenting this series to new comers and sets up well for its sequels, it just sadly is mired by a lot of segments that slow it down far too much in the middle segment of the game. The first two chapters of this game feel wonderful and if only reviewing that section I would give it a 4/5 because that is how good of a start this game has for leading you into its magical world. Sadly, as it goes on the payoff while satisfying does not justify the bloat in the ending. WitchSpring R serves as a good entry point to alchemy games, and has its own unique style that is fun and entertaining. Definitely pick this game up on sale if you're interested, I know I'll be keeping an eye out if WitchSpring R2 is announced.
The short version is, that Star Ocean: The Second Story R is a good remake of a PS1 classic that includes a lot of helpful features and tools to make this a good way to experience the game for the first time. With updated graphics that are quite appealing in the HD Pixel art era that other remakes like Live A Live have been utilizing. There are a lot of interesting ideas that are explored in Star Ocean Second Story R, and it is something other RPGs could learn from.
The long version, is that the gameplay can suffer from being incredibly unbalanced due to the way that the IC system interacts with the combat system. The IC system offers interesting ways to have characters do out of combat actions that all interact with each other in very interesting ways that then help your characters get stronger. Leveling up alchemy gets you materials to then craft into accessories and blacksmith into armor and weapons when you have enough party members with high levels of crafting. Your writing skill allows characters to write books that help other characters to learn these IC skills faster, and publish specialty books that earn you money through the game at publication houses, and cooking gives you very good healing items with effects that can improve other stats. Beyond these are many more combinations that fit into this addictive system. However, the major problem is the combat system is also reliant on this, as there were large difficulty spikes which make it so that the game seems to want you to be investing large amounts of time into leveling these stats up when the game itself is incredibly short outside of the grinding. It is fluff to expand game time when the actual amount of content as far as the main story is short even if it can be fun fluff. The issue is it not being optional by the last dungeon and being required to actually stand a chance against the final boss, let alone the upgraded and enhanced final boss.
Characters were initially interesting, but in the latter half of the game they fall off and are weaker than PS1 contemporary characters, with some of the weakest female characters I can think of from that era. Rena while being a good character, suffers heavily from being an optional protagonist who is so reliant on her other optional lead Claude who is clearly written as the main lead of the story. So much so that when large emotional moments happen for Rena, they are often ignored in favor of Claude to give him more moments even on Rena's route when Rena arguably goes through much more traumatic things than him. It is very much ripe with the feeling that Claude is the main character, and Rena is just an optional character you can play as for a second play through if you really want to. The different paths also don't feel as distinct as I would have liked, with only minor differences between each route, which usually just results in Rena getting kidnapped and trying to escape vs. Claude rescuing her. The major difference being then in the PAs, the system by which small side stories appear for characters. On paper PAs are incredibly interesting, but they fail in the end due to a few limited factors. First, they are very short, and not significant moments for characters most of the time. Secondly, they are very congested, usually getting a lot at the very moment you unlock a new character, before becoming sparse and empty until the latter half of the game, where there are again very few of them. There could definitely be more of them. Finally, they also highlight how shallow the writing is for the women characters, with all of them being either boy crazy, hysterical, or clumsy in a cutesy way to the point where there were no women characters in the party that escaped unscathed. There are two NPC women that actually do anything to the plot that are not mothers, boy crazy, or something similar, and both nearly die. It is that dire. The men for their credit usually have more fun scenes and are more enjoyable to watch PAs of.
A lot of this is cut in favor of the various different endings of the game, which come in the form of different character pairings based on which characters in your party have the highest affinity like the Fire Emblem series. However, similar to the PAs, while there are 99 different endings like the game boasts, they are too short and feel very insignificant compared to the Fire Emblem endings that usually use paragraphs of text to convey things in a better manner that feels more conclusive. Many of the ones that I had gotten feel rather disconnected from the actual central ending which is the same. It might have been that I had just gotten some poorly written ones, but that 4 of the 99 that I had gotten were so rushed, short, and inconclusive that they left me feeling kind of hollow at the end is staggering, especially as I repeat how short the central scenario of the game ended up being.
Star Ocean: The Second Story R has very interesting and fun gameplay that for the time of the original release of the game was something that made it competitive with its contemporaries despite its relatively lower level of storytelling and characters. However, in the modern day with a remake of it, it just highlights all those flaws that other games have learned from since then.
The long version, is that the gameplay can suffer from being incredibly unbalanced due to the way that the IC system interacts with the combat system. The IC system offers interesting ways to have characters do out of combat actions that all interact with each other in very interesting ways that then help your characters get stronger. Leveling up alchemy gets you materials to then craft into accessories and blacksmith into armor and weapons when you have enough party members with high levels of crafting. Your writing skill allows characters to write books that help other characters to learn these IC skills faster, and publish specialty books that earn you money through the game at publication houses, and cooking gives you very good healing items with effects that can improve other stats. Beyond these are many more combinations that fit into this addictive system. However, the major problem is the combat system is also reliant on this, as there were large difficulty spikes which make it so that the game seems to want you to be investing large amounts of time into leveling these stats up when the game itself is incredibly short outside of the grinding. It is fluff to expand game time when the actual amount of content as far as the main story is short even if it can be fun fluff. The issue is it not being optional by the last dungeon and being required to actually stand a chance against the final boss, let alone the upgraded and enhanced final boss.
Characters were initially interesting, but in the latter half of the game they fall off and are weaker than PS1 contemporary characters, with some of the weakest female characters I can think of from that era. Rena while being a good character, suffers heavily from being an optional protagonist who is so reliant on her other optional lead Claude who is clearly written as the main lead of the story. So much so that when large emotional moments happen for Rena, they are often ignored in favor of Claude to give him more moments even on Rena's route when Rena arguably goes through much more traumatic things than him. It is very much ripe with the feeling that Claude is the main character, and Rena is just an optional character you can play as for a second play through if you really want to. The different paths also don't feel as distinct as I would have liked, with only minor differences between each route, which usually just results in Rena getting kidnapped and trying to escape vs. Claude rescuing her. The major difference being then in the PAs, the system by which small side stories appear for characters. On paper PAs are incredibly interesting, but they fail in the end due to a few limited factors. First, they are very short, and not significant moments for characters most of the time. Secondly, they are very congested, usually getting a lot at the very moment you unlock a new character, before becoming sparse and empty until the latter half of the game, where there are again very few of them. There could definitely be more of them. Finally, they also highlight how shallow the writing is for the women characters, with all of them being either boy crazy, hysterical, or clumsy in a cutesy way to the point where there were no women characters in the party that escaped unscathed. There are two NPC women that actually do anything to the plot that are not mothers, boy crazy, or something similar, and both nearly die. It is that dire. The men for their credit usually have more fun scenes and are more enjoyable to watch PAs of.
A lot of this is cut in favor of the various different endings of the game, which come in the form of different character pairings based on which characters in your party have the highest affinity like the Fire Emblem series. However, similar to the PAs, while there are 99 different endings like the game boasts, they are too short and feel very insignificant compared to the Fire Emblem endings that usually use paragraphs of text to convey things in a better manner that feels more conclusive. Many of the ones that I had gotten feel rather disconnected from the actual central ending which is the same. It might have been that I had just gotten some poorly written ones, but that 4 of the 99 that I had gotten were so rushed, short, and inconclusive that they left me feeling kind of hollow at the end is staggering, especially as I repeat how short the central scenario of the game ended up being.
Star Ocean: The Second Story R has very interesting and fun gameplay that for the time of the original release of the game was something that made it competitive with its contemporaries despite its relatively lower level of storytelling and characters. However, in the modern day with a remake of it, it just highlights all those flaws that other games have learned from since then.
I Was a Teenage Exocolonist is an interesting game with a lot of moving parts that have a distinct take on social simulation VN games like Princess Maker. The game tackles a lot of interesting science fiction ideas, with an engaging story that encourages multiple play throughs so that someone can get various different endings and variations on each playthrough to make each one feel unique as you cannot complete everything in one playthrough, much less your first which does lock you out of certain content.
However, the gameplay does not support multiple playthroughs. Each playthrough is very lengthy and time consuming, while the means of playing the game being tiring after even just one playthrough. The VN portions while having decent albeit young adult writing, can start to feel dull due to the text window needing a bit more refinement. The day to day movement along the map while being charming at the start begins to overstay its welcome due to the way it handles finding collectables which are very helpful with low respawn rates and also when events come up with certain characters, requiring you to run around the entire map every day to ensure nothing new came up. Furthermore, while the card game is interesting and fun at the start, it overstays its welcome and gets extremely tedious later on, especially once you start doing a lot of expeditions outside of the colony where you do multiple card game checks a day. The game just doesn't support multiple playthroughs through its gameplay, since it gets dull halfway through your first playthrough and will only get worse as you get to other playthroughs.
Speaking of, in your first playthrough there are many things you cannot do until your second playthrough, which does lock out some things. This would be really cool and something I would praise the game for, but its rough when each playthrough is so incredibly draining that I do not think I can handle a full second playthrough despite the good ideas behind it. As it is, this does mean the game locks you out of being able to get with one of the 2 women characters that will actually stay with your character in the ending, since 2/3 of the women characters you can date in your first playthrough will break up with you and sleep around with others after it despite you telling said character you're fine with open relationships, which can feel a bit problematic considering everyone in this game is bisexual so 2/3 first route romances with bi women end in getting broken up with for them to mess around feeling like a harmful stereotype. Speaking of, a lot of progressive ideas in this game can feel almost regressive or problematic at times which can be quite rough. While it has some interesting things to say about gender, some stereotypes and how it expresses polyamory, open relationships, and sexuality in general can be very rough. I will say I will always appreciate a piece of media that tries and fails to explore LGBTQ+ topics than one that doesn't bother at all, but it still bears bringing up.
Definitely a very ambitious, creative, and interesting game that is dragged down by a tedious gameplay loop that doesn't evolve enough as the game progresses to be able to support all the content in the game. Which is a shame, since there is a lot of good content in this game post a first playthrough that is worth exploring. I will probably get back to other playthroughs another time, but right now I feel it would be unfair to be trudging through gameplay I am burned out on to get to the new content.
However, the gameplay does not support multiple playthroughs. Each playthrough is very lengthy and time consuming, while the means of playing the game being tiring after even just one playthrough. The VN portions while having decent albeit young adult writing, can start to feel dull due to the text window needing a bit more refinement. The day to day movement along the map while being charming at the start begins to overstay its welcome due to the way it handles finding collectables which are very helpful with low respawn rates and also when events come up with certain characters, requiring you to run around the entire map every day to ensure nothing new came up. Furthermore, while the card game is interesting and fun at the start, it overstays its welcome and gets extremely tedious later on, especially once you start doing a lot of expeditions outside of the colony where you do multiple card game checks a day. The game just doesn't support multiple playthroughs through its gameplay, since it gets dull halfway through your first playthrough and will only get worse as you get to other playthroughs.
Speaking of, in your first playthrough there are many things you cannot do until your second playthrough, which does lock out some things. This would be really cool and something I would praise the game for, but its rough when each playthrough is so incredibly draining that I do not think I can handle a full second playthrough despite the good ideas behind it. As it is, this does mean the game locks you out of being able to get with one of the 2 women characters that will actually stay with your character in the ending, since 2/3 of the women characters you can date in your first playthrough will break up with you and sleep around with others after it despite you telling said character you're fine with open relationships, which can feel a bit problematic considering everyone in this game is bisexual so 2/3 first route romances with bi women end in getting broken up with for them to mess around feeling like a harmful stereotype. Speaking of, a lot of progressive ideas in this game can feel almost regressive or problematic at times which can be quite rough. While it has some interesting things to say about gender, some stereotypes and how it expresses polyamory, open relationships, and sexuality in general can be very rough. I will say I will always appreciate a piece of media that tries and fails to explore LGBTQ+ topics than one that doesn't bother at all, but it still bears bringing up.
Definitely a very ambitious, creative, and interesting game that is dragged down by a tedious gameplay loop that doesn't evolve enough as the game progresses to be able to support all the content in the game. Which is a shame, since there is a lot of good content in this game post a first playthrough that is worth exploring. I will probably get back to other playthroughs another time, but right now I feel it would be unfair to be trudging through gameplay I am burned out on to get to the new content.
A low point in Uchikoshi's modern library of games. A prime example of writing the twist first and writing backwards from it in order to try to make it make sense no matter how terrible that makes character motivations and reasons for keeping information from the player. Dragged down further by the very weak and pathetic attempts to make it so that you can play this game without playing the original (Which doesn't end up working because the story's emotional beats and revelations are reliant on you knowing important things from the first game. They should have just made this a proper sequel). Doubling down on sex jokes made at minors with adult characters STILL perving on women that just turned 18, action sequences that felt even more embarrassing than the first game as if that was possible, and some completely unresolved plot lines (BOAT MY GOOD SIR). I am still completely in awe of the horrible retcon they made to the first game that undermines the themes of found family, and also make no sense even when the characters try to handwave it in universe. Some of the reveals in this game were so bad that I had to take a minute to walk away. It can just be so... Hacky in the worst ways possible which is disappointing. At least its entertaining in the same way as watching The Room or Birdemic?
Ryuki's path while having a few good moments was comparable to Iris's route in the first game with very little substance actually going on and being boring, made worse by Ryuki then being absent from the other half of the game because both paths are completely divorced from each other. Mizuki and Ryuki paths should have been spliced so that both characters were given equal roles as protagonists. Ryuki felt like nothing in the end. Mizuki's path at least does pick up at the end and can at least be entertaining despite how nonsense the twists are. I think the new VR crime scene investigation also ruins the pacing as they all end up taking more time than any crime scene investigation of the original game, and there are multiple segments featuring VR crime scenes in this one.
The redeeming points of the story are some of the characters new and old (With still some incredibly annoying ones both new and old), some of the cool meta breaking events that were unrelated to the main twist, a few good somniums, and some of the humor still landing.
Overall, it weakens the first game and learned nothing from it.
Ryuki's path while having a few good moments was comparable to Iris's route in the first game with very little substance actually going on and being boring, made worse by Ryuki then being absent from the other half of the game because both paths are completely divorced from each other. Mizuki and Ryuki paths should have been spliced so that both characters were given equal roles as protagonists. Ryuki felt like nothing in the end. Mizuki's path at least does pick up at the end and can at least be entertaining despite how nonsense the twists are. I think the new VR crime scene investigation also ruins the pacing as they all end up taking more time than any crime scene investigation of the original game, and there are multiple segments featuring VR crime scenes in this one.
The redeeming points of the story are some of the characters new and old (With still some incredibly annoying ones both new and old), some of the cool meta breaking events that were unrelated to the main twist, a few good somniums, and some of the humor still landing.
Overall, it weakens the first game and learned nothing from it.
Atelier Ryza 3 suffers from a lot of the known problems with sequels, but it is at the end of the day still a Ryza game. I would easily rate this as the weakest of the Ryza trilogy, as while it has more of everything, it feels a lot more bloated and aimless than the previous two entries.
There are more areas that are even larger than the past two games that are very expansive in scope, however that doesn't necessarily make them better. Whereas in Ryza 1 and 2, it was common to be searching through every single nook and cranny of a new zone to find new ingredients, ingredient variety is extremely limited in these giant landscapes in 3. You will be exploring all of the Kurken Islands from the first game, and nearly all of the areas will give nearly identical ingredients apart from three locations, and this is repeated in the other new regions added into this game where the visuals for these locations are very nice and even the hidden treasures are placed well, but it feels like they have very little purpose other than to fill space. Treasures are also significantly weaker and I felt like there was no point in getting them very early on, making treasure hunting pointless.
The new gameplay addition of keys are quite confusing and only serve to be a weaker more complicated version of essences, which only even become worthwhile once you reach the end game and can craft higher rarity keys. In combat, they are often too gamebreaking that I didn't even bother with them, which is also a problem with the game's balancing where I found the end game content was far too easy even when playing the game on hard mode. The beginning of the game with hard mode feels like a long trek as battles take too long, but there is some challenge, only for that to be blown apart once you start unlocking higher quality material gathering tools. The only new addition to a gathering tool is the water and land beasts which feel so much like side content and unnecessary for most of the game that I barely even feel the need to bring them up at all. With the only final thing to mention being super traits which some items you gather may have and that are stronger than regular traits. Though, as I said before, even with regular traits your tools will get too strong once you get to the midway point making the rest of the game too easy.
There are also too many party members in this game, while I do enjoy Dian and Kala (With Federica being my least favorite party member in the entire series by a large margin...), I found the bloated cast had too much screen time to share amongst them and took up too much of every scene. Often times it was like characters were fighting to stay relevant especially in the last third of the game. With so many character events feeling a lot weaker and less filled with character than the last two games. I did enjoy some aspects such as Lent, Tao and Bos's stories, but many other character events felt significantly lacking as the characters had to share so much of them with the rest of the party.
The story itself from this is also bloated, and even more nonsensical than the last two games. Ryza games are known for their lighthearted stories that don't take themselves too seriously but this went beyond that. Ryza often would go on weird side adventures despite the giant risks that are presented to her at the start of the story, as though she herself forgot all about these problems as she chased a new shiny red ball, made really terrible given how little the Cleria region ultimately had to do with the actual plot. All themes about being an 'honest alchemist' were watered down into Ryza good, old alchemists bad, with absolutely nothing set up to suggest that Ryza's absolute recklessness and wanton uses of alchemy in this game are not resembling how overly ambitious the old alchemists were in the past. Ryza could create a nuclear bomb, and Empel would still say she is an honest alchemist because she did it the 'right way', and not the 'wrong way' like the old alchemists did. Its like we had forgotten entirely that the old alchemists even did any good things at all and were completely irredeemable from the very beginning. Furthermore, the plotline involving them feels so haphazardly strung together that I was wondering where the plot was going for most of the run time. With a ridiculously long and drawn out final third to this game that makes use of obscene amounts of backtracking and pointless time wasting to meander about filling up screen time when all the mcguffins could have just been given and mixed together way earlier on to cut down the tedium. Ending in an absolutely baffling way that had Ryza magically solving all the problems in a very unsatisfying way. The only redeeming part being that the actual ending motivations for the party are a lot better than Ryza 2, where it felt like Ryza found herself stuck in a rut. Now in Ryza 3 in the ending, it finally seems like she and the others found their way and will be moving on to bright futures ahead of them. Even setting up a sequel to this setting for a future Atelier game with Ryza as a mentor.
I'm honestly conflicted, I did enjoy the game mostly due to it being a relaxing collection grinding game like the past two which I really like with very in depth alchemy mechanics. However, this game suffers from too many bloated and tied in mechanics that feel like the development team did not know what they were doing. It was an aimless sequel where they knew the ending, but had no idea what to do for everything in between and were trying to make it feel bigger than the last two games. I do have to give the game credit for not gaybaiting given that was a concern going in, and I did like getting to see where all these characters I liked grew and moved forward. Still, in the end, this game just makes me want to return back to Ryza 2. Ryza 3 gets 3/5 stars.
There are more areas that are even larger than the past two games that are very expansive in scope, however that doesn't necessarily make them better. Whereas in Ryza 1 and 2, it was common to be searching through every single nook and cranny of a new zone to find new ingredients, ingredient variety is extremely limited in these giant landscapes in 3. You will be exploring all of the Kurken Islands from the first game, and nearly all of the areas will give nearly identical ingredients apart from three locations, and this is repeated in the other new regions added into this game where the visuals for these locations are very nice and even the hidden treasures are placed well, but it feels like they have very little purpose other than to fill space. Treasures are also significantly weaker and I felt like there was no point in getting them very early on, making treasure hunting pointless.
The new gameplay addition of keys are quite confusing and only serve to be a weaker more complicated version of essences, which only even become worthwhile once you reach the end game and can craft higher rarity keys. In combat, they are often too gamebreaking that I didn't even bother with them, which is also a problem with the game's balancing where I found the end game content was far too easy even when playing the game on hard mode. The beginning of the game with hard mode feels like a long trek as battles take too long, but there is some challenge, only for that to be blown apart once you start unlocking higher quality material gathering tools. The only new addition to a gathering tool is the water and land beasts which feel so much like side content and unnecessary for most of the game that I barely even feel the need to bring them up at all. With the only final thing to mention being super traits which some items you gather may have and that are stronger than regular traits. Though, as I said before, even with regular traits your tools will get too strong once you get to the midway point making the rest of the game too easy.
There are also too many party members in this game, while I do enjoy Dian and Kala (With Federica being my least favorite party member in the entire series by a large margin...), I found the bloated cast had too much screen time to share amongst them and took up too much of every scene. Often times it was like characters were fighting to stay relevant especially in the last third of the game. With so many character events feeling a lot weaker and less filled with character than the last two games. I did enjoy some aspects such as Lent, Tao and Bos's stories, but many other character events felt significantly lacking as the characters had to share so much of them with the rest of the party.
The story itself from this is also bloated, and even more nonsensical than the last two games. Ryza games are known for their lighthearted stories that don't take themselves too seriously but this went beyond that. Ryza often would go on weird side adventures despite the giant risks that are presented to her at the start of the story, as though she herself forgot all about these problems as she chased a new shiny red ball, made really terrible given how little the Cleria region ultimately had to do with the actual plot. All themes about being an 'honest alchemist' were watered down into Ryza good, old alchemists bad, with absolutely nothing set up to suggest that Ryza's absolute recklessness and wanton uses of alchemy in this game are not resembling how overly ambitious the old alchemists were in the past. Ryza could create a nuclear bomb, and Empel would still say she is an honest alchemist because she did it the 'right way', and not the 'wrong way' like the old alchemists did. Its like we had forgotten entirely that the old alchemists even did any good things at all and were completely irredeemable from the very beginning. Furthermore, the plotline involving them feels so haphazardly strung together that I was wondering where the plot was going for most of the run time. With a ridiculously long and drawn out final third to this game that makes use of obscene amounts of backtracking and pointless time wasting to meander about filling up screen time when all the mcguffins could have just been given and mixed together way earlier on to cut down the tedium. Ending in an absolutely baffling way that had Ryza magically solving all the problems in a very unsatisfying way. The only redeeming part being that the actual ending motivations for the party are a lot better than Ryza 2, where it felt like Ryza found herself stuck in a rut. Now in Ryza 3 in the ending, it finally seems like she and the others found their way and will be moving on to bright futures ahead of them. Even setting up a sequel to this setting for a future Atelier game with Ryza as a mentor.
I'm honestly conflicted, I did enjoy the game mostly due to it being a relaxing collection grinding game like the past two which I really like with very in depth alchemy mechanics. However, this game suffers from too many bloated and tied in mechanics that feel like the development team did not know what they were doing. It was an aimless sequel where they knew the ending, but had no idea what to do for everything in between and were trying to make it feel bigger than the last two games. I do have to give the game credit for not gaybaiting given that was a concern going in, and I did like getting to see where all these characters I liked grew and moved forward. Still, in the end, this game just makes me want to return back to Ryza 2. Ryza 3 gets 3/5 stars.
2009
This review contains spoilers
I really think that people exaggerate how the limitations of the PSP make this the inferior version of Persona 3 for a number of reasons. I admit, I am used to the visual novel genre and as such do not hold the fact that this game due to limitations had to remove a number of the visual elements of the game, but I do think people underestimate the good changes made toward the FEMC route of this game that were made in exchange for this sacrifice. Yes, the anime cutscenes were nice as was exploring the overworld with 3D models, but the game is not handicapped significantly due to this and it is easy enough for players to watch the cut scenes on youtube as they play.
The female protagonist feels like her own character from the separate male protagonist due to unique dialogue options, different story scenarios that can change scenes entirely based on your character being a woman, and also from the new social links. The game put forth a lot of effort into this route instead of it just being the same route but with a change in gender like many other RPGs with this option, and the game is tangibly different to change motivations of characters, scenes and even social links to accommodate your character being a woman. I would even argue in some cases this is for the better such as feeling much more kinship with Yukari at the beginning of the game.
Furthermore, having all party members be social links helps to characterize them more in line with future entries and you can tell what the team learned from developing Persona 4 toward FEMC route. This is especially helpful toward characters like Junpei who are very rough in the first half of the game by giving him more positive interactions through his social link with the MC where we can find out issues about his abusive father and trying to protect the MC from a secret photographer. With Koromaru you get to have more characterization with him as opposed to just him being a cute dog, with some rather nice links involving him protecting his previous master's shrine.
Of course also leading to Shinjiro's social link to allow the player to get more time with him, and even save him if you max out his link. I think this was done surprisingly tastefully too. I was very concerned after finding out while playing that you can save Shinji, since his death sparks the final arc of Persona 3's story. However, it doesn't take away from the tragedy of his death with him being in a coma, and the game addresses it numerous ways including with Akihiko's speech now being to a Shinji who cannot wake up and even there being a greek tragedy with Shinji wanting the protagonist to live the most and continue protecting the others, only to wake up from his coma only when the protagonist perishes at the end of the game. Ironically living on past her in its own dark spin (Or only meeting you during your death in new game +). The game even considers Ken in this, with Ken praying that Shinji will wake up in the new year once he had forgiven him.
The gameplay also adds in a few additional personas, as well as skill cards that can help with the added challenge of the bonus dungeons and bosses present in Portable that offer more challenge beyond the base game.
All of this combined together, I think Portable provides a unique experience that should not be as shunned in exchange for FES, both have benefits, and for those that want more characterization for SEES and to be able to play as a female protagonist with a lesbian route, P3P is perfectly servicable if not better storywise than the original game, only lacking in its execution due to the lack of 3D models in scenes and the anime cut scenes.
Bringing to my feelings on Persona 3 as a whole. Persona 3 is not my favorite Persona game, but it laid the foundation for Persona 4. There is a lack of balance with enemies and lack of strategies with bosses which would be refined in both Persona 4 and 5. It was a bold new direction with the inclusion of social links as they were feeling out the waters and learning how to adapt them further in future games, while having some refreshing ways for the game to punish you for being dickish to your SLs that is missing from future games. The story has a lot of contrivances and has very weak human villains, but a very good final boss in the form of Nyx that I can still get chills from hearing the Fools journey with even as I'm blitzing through the boss fight easily. While the party didn't resonate with me as much as Persona 4, each character is unique and has interesting dynamics with at least one other party member with some tragic pasts that made me feel for these characters to fit into the theme of loss that is the core of Persona 3's story. This game started the UI revolution that P4 and P5 carried on, with a nice visual flair and style that is continued in the game and cut scenes with its own unique sound track that will be someone's favorite. All in all, a solid JRPG that has its flaws and I can definitely see why this is some people's favorite Persona game due to its strengths. 3.5/5
The female protagonist feels like her own character from the separate male protagonist due to unique dialogue options, different story scenarios that can change scenes entirely based on your character being a woman, and also from the new social links. The game put forth a lot of effort into this route instead of it just being the same route but with a change in gender like many other RPGs with this option, and the game is tangibly different to change motivations of characters, scenes and even social links to accommodate your character being a woman. I would even argue in some cases this is for the better such as feeling much more kinship with Yukari at the beginning of the game.
Furthermore, having all party members be social links helps to characterize them more in line with future entries and you can tell what the team learned from developing Persona 4 toward FEMC route. This is especially helpful toward characters like Junpei who are very rough in the first half of the game by giving him more positive interactions through his social link with the MC where we can find out issues about his abusive father and trying to protect the MC from a secret photographer. With Koromaru you get to have more characterization with him as opposed to just him being a cute dog, with some rather nice links involving him protecting his previous master's shrine.
Of course also leading to Shinjiro's social link to allow the player to get more time with him, and even save him if you max out his link. I think this was done surprisingly tastefully too. I was very concerned after finding out while playing that you can save Shinji, since his death sparks the final arc of Persona 3's story. However, it doesn't take away from the tragedy of his death with him being in a coma, and the game addresses it numerous ways including with Akihiko's speech now being to a Shinji who cannot wake up and even there being a greek tragedy with Shinji wanting the protagonist to live the most and continue protecting the others, only to wake up from his coma only when the protagonist perishes at the end of the game. Ironically living on past her in its own dark spin (Or only meeting you during your death in new game +). The game even considers Ken in this, with Ken praying that Shinji will wake up in the new year once he had forgiven him.
The gameplay also adds in a few additional personas, as well as skill cards that can help with the added challenge of the bonus dungeons and bosses present in Portable that offer more challenge beyond the base game.
All of this combined together, I think Portable provides a unique experience that should not be as shunned in exchange for FES, both have benefits, and for those that want more characterization for SEES and to be able to play as a female protagonist with a lesbian route, P3P is perfectly servicable if not better storywise than the original game, only lacking in its execution due to the lack of 3D models in scenes and the anime cut scenes.
Bringing to my feelings on Persona 3 as a whole. Persona 3 is not my favorite Persona game, but it laid the foundation for Persona 4. There is a lack of balance with enemies and lack of strategies with bosses which would be refined in both Persona 4 and 5. It was a bold new direction with the inclusion of social links as they were feeling out the waters and learning how to adapt them further in future games, while having some refreshing ways for the game to punish you for being dickish to your SLs that is missing from future games. The story has a lot of contrivances and has very weak human villains, but a very good final boss in the form of Nyx that I can still get chills from hearing the Fools journey with even as I'm blitzing through the boss fight easily. While the party didn't resonate with me as much as Persona 4, each character is unique and has interesting dynamics with at least one other party member with some tragic pasts that made me feel for these characters to fit into the theme of loss that is the core of Persona 3's story. This game started the UI revolution that P4 and P5 carried on, with a nice visual flair and style that is continued in the game and cut scenes with its own unique sound track that will be someone's favorite. All in all, a solid JRPG that has its flaws and I can definitely see why this is some people's favorite Persona game due to its strengths. 3.5/5
I honestly have a lot less to say about Eternal Punishment as I did with Innocent Sin. I found the game to be enjoyable, but definitely did start to grow dull toward the middle to end sections, and it didn't pick up much in the conclusion for me.
I think much of this has to do with a lot of the story being retreading of Innocent Sin, with a lot of the structure being entirely beat for beat recreations of events in Innocent Sin. There was nothing offensive, but very few standout moments that had me feeling satisfied. I'd say that the major problem I had was the emotional throughline felt weak to me, as it was largely pushed toward Tatsuya who is not present through most of the game and story until the very end. While it didn't have anything as offensively bad or gross as the nazis, or the wasted potential of the Masked Circle in the first game... It also just felt lacking. Such as finding the fortune telling to be weaker than the wish granting and shadow men scenario in Innocent Sin. Again, just an alright and passable story that didn't grip me as much as I would have liked.
As far as the main cast: While I did enjoy Katsuya and Baofu and their bickering, I didn't really feel much for Ulala or Maya, who was weakened greatly with her voice being taken away. Maya still served as a better protagonist that Tatsuya in my opinion, but making her silent was a large mistake. As a result, with it largely being the four characters through most of the story, I felt their chemistry could have been stronger. With Maya silent, there was no fun banter with Ulala with her, and instead the best banter Ulala gets is with Baofu. Katsuya and Baofu have their moments with their morals ending up on opposite sides given one is a detective and one is a vigilante, but there also wasn't much with Baofu and Maya. Katsuya's crush on Maya was cute however. Tatsuya himself felt like he was written into being too gloomy, and while it makes sense in this scenario and with the themes of maturing and adulthood, it does take away other aspects of his character from the past game with him making goofy sounds to demons. I had gone with Nanjo route for story, and Nanjo largely was just the same as he was in P1, but I felt he had less chemistry with the EP cast than Yukino did with Maya in IS. As a result, it often feels like there are 3 1/2 party members for the full game, with Ulala, Katsuya, Baofu, and silent protagonist Maya. I would have liked the party to have a stronger connection, which probably would have helped with Maya no longer being silent, and Tatsuya opening up more in the end game.
The gameplay was largely the same, with a bit more difficulty put onto boss fights so they weren't as braindead as they were in Innocent Sin. I found the game to be a good blend of difficulty for the limited combat system, only finding some aspects to be more annoying and not well thought out. Such as the Old Maid skill being something that bosses could spam rather than having a cooldown or trigger to activate, and that some enemies had skills that could completely drain your wallet. In that sense, they just felt more mean-spirited than difficult. Beyond that, my thoughts from Innocent Sin's gameplay is largely the same. It was serviceable, was an improvement to problems in P1, still miss the grid system, but still doesn't reward exploiting weaknesses as much as SMT games, or future Persona games. Leading to using your favorite spell over and over again generally being the best strategy.
Overall, Eternal Punishment is mostly a lot more of Innocent Sin, but without the offensive parts of it. It has a decent story, a decent cast of characters, and decent gameplay for the time it came out in. Though, I think it does lack the strong emotional core and the highlights of Innocent Sin that I liked about it. In this sense, Eternal Punishment was fun, but nothing standout to me. Compared to Innocent Sin's constant highlights and low points, Eternal Punishment was just a steady ride from beginning to end. 3.5/5
I think much of this has to do with a lot of the story being retreading of Innocent Sin, with a lot of the structure being entirely beat for beat recreations of events in Innocent Sin. There was nothing offensive, but very few standout moments that had me feeling satisfied. I'd say that the major problem I had was the emotional throughline felt weak to me, as it was largely pushed toward Tatsuya who is not present through most of the game and story until the very end. While it didn't have anything as offensively bad or gross as the nazis, or the wasted potential of the Masked Circle in the first game... It also just felt lacking. Such as finding the fortune telling to be weaker than the wish granting and shadow men scenario in Innocent Sin. Again, just an alright and passable story that didn't grip me as much as I would have liked.
As far as the main cast: While I did enjoy Katsuya and Baofu and their bickering, I didn't really feel much for Ulala or Maya, who was weakened greatly with her voice being taken away. Maya still served as a better protagonist that Tatsuya in my opinion, but making her silent was a large mistake. As a result, with it largely being the four characters through most of the story, I felt their chemistry could have been stronger. With Maya silent, there was no fun banter with Ulala with her, and instead the best banter Ulala gets is with Baofu. Katsuya and Baofu have their moments with their morals ending up on opposite sides given one is a detective and one is a vigilante, but there also wasn't much with Baofu and Maya. Katsuya's crush on Maya was cute however. Tatsuya himself felt like he was written into being too gloomy, and while it makes sense in this scenario and with the themes of maturing and adulthood, it does take away other aspects of his character from the past game with him making goofy sounds to demons. I had gone with Nanjo route for story, and Nanjo largely was just the same as he was in P1, but I felt he had less chemistry with the EP cast than Yukino did with Maya in IS. As a result, it often feels like there are 3 1/2 party members for the full game, with Ulala, Katsuya, Baofu, and silent protagonist Maya. I would have liked the party to have a stronger connection, which probably would have helped with Maya no longer being silent, and Tatsuya opening up more in the end game.
The gameplay was largely the same, with a bit more difficulty put onto boss fights so they weren't as braindead as they were in Innocent Sin. I found the game to be a good blend of difficulty for the limited combat system, only finding some aspects to be more annoying and not well thought out. Such as the Old Maid skill being something that bosses could spam rather than having a cooldown or trigger to activate, and that some enemies had skills that could completely drain your wallet. In that sense, they just felt more mean-spirited than difficult. Beyond that, my thoughts from Innocent Sin's gameplay is largely the same. It was serviceable, was an improvement to problems in P1, still miss the grid system, but still doesn't reward exploiting weaknesses as much as SMT games, or future Persona games. Leading to using your favorite spell over and over again generally being the best strategy.
Overall, Eternal Punishment is mostly a lot more of Innocent Sin, but without the offensive parts of it. It has a decent story, a decent cast of characters, and decent gameplay for the time it came out in. Though, I think it does lack the strong emotional core and the highlights of Innocent Sin that I liked about it. In this sense, Eternal Punishment was fun, but nothing standout to me. Compared to Innocent Sin's constant highlights and low points, Eternal Punishment was just a steady ride from beginning to end. 3.5/5
This review contains spoilers
It is quite funny that Persona 2: Innocent Sin features so much to do with rumors, because there are so many rumors about the game itself. Going into this game I was given a completely wrong impression of the game that I was to be playing, and in a sense that both led me open to be disappointed numerous times, while also being pleasantly surprised by many factors.
To begin, the gameplay of Persona 2 is drastically improved from Persona 1. While Persona 2 clearly is still experimental just like its predecessor, many gameplay elements took away from the tedium of playing that Persona 1 had. The isometric exploration has been completely fixed with the inclusion of diagonal movement and the ability to spin the camera. Dungeon exploration was changed to these isometric maps as well, making navigation much easier than the first person perspective. Dungeon maps were designed by a human being this time, and while some can be a bit grating, especially in timed parts of the game with a real clock, there was nothing here I would say was as offensive as Persona 1's maps, especially with the inclusion of chests on the overworld meaning checking dead ends could be rewarding. The persona rank mechanic was made slightly less tedious by having some personas have naturally faster growth rates compared to others, while still including the rule about that growth rate being even faster if you are ten levels higher than the persona. However, persona levels and party experience not being evenly shared were completely removed and for the better. Obtaining cards is easier since you collect arcana cards that can then be used to summon the demon of your choice, but admittedly removes all fusion mechanics beyond adding cards into a summon to make a persona fundamentally different. This removes the fun of fusion, but with the level of tedium from Persona 1, I understand the change as it is here until future Persona games bring back fusion into a more enjoyable experience like other SMT games.
The actual combat becomes a lot closer to what fans are familiar with in future SMT titles as well as future Persona titles, though rather than have a press turn function, the combat is focused mostly on fusion. The character's bonds in this game are the focus and this comes in through fusion attacks which combine different persona moves to get sometimes good results, and also group negotiation with demons to allow your party to cooperate to convince demons to lend you their cards. There is no longer any grid system which I found disappointing as I had enjoyed it, and instead it follows a more typical way of battling according to attacks always being able to target all enemies regardless of location. Elements were balanced much better and weaknesses, repels, and nullifications were much less common for enemies as well as personas making the game of finding enemy weaknesses to still be enjoyable. There wasn't enough justification for aiming for weaknesses instead of just attacking with your best attack that did neutral damage however, and as such the combat often just ended up being spamming your favorite persona's attack. With an auto-battle function, the game can very often play itself. This would be less of a problem, but this game is quite easy, and requires little strategy with few bosses offering much challenge. Furthermore, the experience gain, and the amount of encounters is still very high. This makes exploration take very long periods of time and I can say that this game plays much better with a fast forward function nowadays to fast forward through the otherwise slower combat. I overall did enjoy it, but mostly as a mindless grinding game where I was strategically planning my next persona summons, who would they be assigned to, and so forth. The economy also gets completely shattered later on with money being so easily available that you would be a fool not to buy 99 beads and 99 chewing souls which feels necessary in the last dungeon.
Onto the characters and story. Persona 2's introduction is fantastic. There is a great introduction to the characters of Lisa, Eikichi, Maya and Yukino through the rather quick paced plot. The idea of rumors being utilized and coming true along with people's wishes being granted at the cost of others is an intriguing and interesting plot. At many points, this is played in really clever and fun ways that play with expectations. The rumor mechanic also plays into gameplay though it is a rather minor part of the game in my opinion and could have been realized in a much more full way.
The story is willing to take dark turns with serial arsonists burning a man to death in front of you, as well as seeing characters be forgotten by their friends and family beyond persona users who can still perceive them. It brings up a twisted mentality for the villain Joker who sees dreams as something that can be a burden on those unready to realize them. The masked circle is a compelling group of antagonists and led by Joker leads to some very diverse and unique objectives and settings to defeat them.
Up until this point, the character bonds also are quite well handled, I particularly really enjoyed Eikichi and Maya who always had fun banter with each other and Lisa. Along with Yukino feeling a bit like an outsider beyond her bond with Maya, but still having deep connections to the Persona 1 cast. I could definitely see how this party dynamic would be used to influence Persona 4's, and I can see how this cast can be people's favorites just like future games as some people will resonate with this cast more.
This is until the halfway point of the game. At this point of the game, Innocent Sin takes a nosedive. Once you discover the secret of the main characters' amnesia and the motivations for Joker/Jun as an antagonist, I lost a great deal of suspension of disbelief. There is so much wrong with Jun's motivations. For one, he is trying to torture and kill the main party because of the perceived murder of Maya, yet Jun unlike Lisa, didn't look into the situation at the shrine a single time to find out that Maya was still alive basing this all on assumptions. Despite knowing who Tatsuya Sudou is, and how he is different from Tatsuya Suou, he immeidately believes that it is Suou's fault, even though he also knows that Sudou is a serial arsonist and even has him in the Masked Circle as one of his allies who is burning people alive and laying bombs around the city... On top of this, he also starts up the nazi rumors at this point, which were conspiracy theories written by his nazi sympathizer father (Who is not chastized at all for having written nazi propoganda). This all leading into an end of the world plot where Jun raises the city into the sky in order to bring about Xibalba to wipe out humanity to bring about an 'evolution'. This is mostly handwaved away with all the characters (Except maybe Tatsuya if you choose to play him as not forgiving Jun) forgiving Jun in an instant and mostly blaming it all on Nyarlothotep. Though, through numerous dialogue spots in the game, we find out that Jun was fully aware of what he was doing this entire time even without Nyarlathotep's influence. To me, this jumps the shark dramatically.
To expound on this, this is where we start dealing with character's shadows and I found most of them to be out of character or out of no where reveals that felt like shock value just like the nazis. Yukino reveals that she sleeps around despite there being no evidence that she would even think of doing this in Persona 1, and all the events of P2 where she seems faithful to her new lover, and in the 'bad' scene where you have Yukino not present to confront her shadow, she kisses Anna in a predatory way only pushing negative stereotypes about bi women sleeping around. With Lisa, there was absolutely no hint or clue that she had done drugs or swindled old men, which is baffling considering how much random dialogue we get in other scenes and locations. Yet not a single clue toward this. I would have been satisfied if we had an old man NPC comment about recognizing Lisa in one of the many store stops, but this isn't the case. It could be argued Lisa was doing a relatively harmless drug like marijuana, but the dialogue suggests something of a more extreme nature which again wasn't shown in any way through the story. Having known people who were negatively effected by drugs and drug addiction through my life this type of hamfisted shoving into a story I dislike greatly. Eikichi's isn't too offensive, but again conflicts with lines he had in stores where he admits the narcissism is an act and he regularly talks poorly about himself, only for his shadow to push this idea that he is entirely narcissistic. Though, this mostly was for Miyabi who was the more tragic character in this with her plotline being toward her being overweight and the almost shame she has for her self for it (Which I find offensive when her weight loss wasn't undone in the ending, undermining Eikichi's unconditional love for her). Tatsuya's is nice as it finally gives some dialogue to him when he's otherwise almost mute for the entire story, but wasn't something I'd comment much on.
Also pushing to a plot contrivance where Yukino loses her Persona to Jun, when Jun just could have gotten a new persona from numerous other ways. It seems like a weird way to force her out of the story when she could have just gone to fight with the rest of the Persona 1 cast seen at Tony's to help out the P2 cast in the background.
All of these plot points end up being very shallow for the most part and feel like a low point for the entire game.
Leading to the ending which starts to actually pick up again. Despite how far the shark was jumped and how my suspension of disbelief was blown, the sincere friendship I felt between the main cast had a lot of emotional beats that I enjoyed. Even leading to the ending having a rather beautiful and melancholic end, where Maya dies in a tragic way which distracts the party long enough for Nyarlathotep to destroy the world. There, given the choice by Philemon a god that was all but having a contest with Nyarlathotep with you as pawns to reverse Maya's death by forgetting all the events of the game. It is a tragic end that brings toward the memory plotline in a really sweet way, especially upon seeing the epilogue where the characters still end up being brought together despite their lack of shared memories. Giving the option to punch Philemon for using you as pawns is also satisfying.
This leads into my overall feelings for the story. I overall think that all the shock value moments were completely unnecessary and detracted from this game. All of the shadows and nazis could be removed, and replaced with more screen time for the Masked Circle and I think this game would be much more effective as a story. Furthermore, from all the rumors I had heard going into this story about Persona 2 having the best LGBT+ representation, I was greatly disappointed. Yukino shows really negative stereotypes toward bi women, and as do the two trans NPCs in the game with a trans woman being seen as disgusting by Eikichi before becoming vain and joining the villains, and the other is a trans man flashing their genitals to Tatsuya and Maya in a public store. Leading us finally to Jun and Tatsuya. For its time, Jun being gay was a standout, but ultimately I was very unsatisfied with its implementation. I think that Jun and Tatsuya's relationship has a good set up with their past and is cute, however Jun's design is based off of stereotypes towards gay men being effeminate and particularly uses a lot of Freud's outdated and negative theories toward gay men being narcissistic which is evident by the game talks about Jun being Tatsuya's shadow and resembling him greatly using direct wording that Freud would. Ultimately this only adds to a single line of dialogue where Lisa hardly believes Tatsuya is serious and still plans to steal Tatsuya away anyway, a line of dialogue where Jun asks Tatsuya out to visit a restaurant with him, and finally their ability to hold hands in demon negotiations. I understand that this was a big deal for its time, and can understand why so many people who find interest in this considering the lack of content in 1999, however the game seems to treat it very poorly with the end game having Lisa kiss Tatsuya no matter who he chose, and also having a star-crossed lovers ending sequence with Maya even if you chose to pick Jun as your romantic partner. Jun gets nothing like this in the ending, which is incredibly disappointing and shows that he wasn't seen in the same light as Lisa and Maya at the time of the game's release. I am happy that there is at least this much, but I hope that I expressed why by no means I think that this game should be recommended for its LGBT+ content since its overall negative. The game has other merits to recommend it that I hope I have outlined in my review, but LGBT+ content, as well as the mishandled controversial topics before I mentioned are not.
The art of this game is very good, and I can see easily how this art direction carried forward to all future mainline titles. The increased number of character portraits allows for more expression in the game than in P1, and their expressiveness is honestly very impressive. Many faces either had me laugh out loud, or understand completely the pain the characters were going through. The spritework was also improved with the pixel art in the game, allowing models to move more fluidly, more animations, and also more detailed demons and personas despite each one being modeled in the four diagonal directions for combat. The music was stellar from what I could tell, and I loved the style of this game.
This all leading to my final conclusion of this game. Persona 2: Innocent Sin is plagued with rumors. People who have played very little of this game will make grandiose statements that will never live up to expectations, while some of its long term fans cannot possibly hope to express its strengths in a meaningful way without dulling the listener. Do not buy into the hype or negativity surrounding this game, you have to experience it yourself to understand what this game accomplishes and what it fails in since the rumors surrounding it will not give you a good idea of what you are in for (Though please play it with a speedup option to fast forward combat). This game both heavily inspired future Persona games, while also being its wholly own thing. It has high highs, and at times offensive low lows. It is a very experimental JRPG that both took confident steps forward, while also stumbling terribly at some portions. Persona 2: Innocent Sin gets a 3.5/5.
To begin, the gameplay of Persona 2 is drastically improved from Persona 1. While Persona 2 clearly is still experimental just like its predecessor, many gameplay elements took away from the tedium of playing that Persona 1 had. The isometric exploration has been completely fixed with the inclusion of diagonal movement and the ability to spin the camera. Dungeon exploration was changed to these isometric maps as well, making navigation much easier than the first person perspective. Dungeon maps were designed by a human being this time, and while some can be a bit grating, especially in timed parts of the game with a real clock, there was nothing here I would say was as offensive as Persona 1's maps, especially with the inclusion of chests on the overworld meaning checking dead ends could be rewarding. The persona rank mechanic was made slightly less tedious by having some personas have naturally faster growth rates compared to others, while still including the rule about that growth rate being even faster if you are ten levels higher than the persona. However, persona levels and party experience not being evenly shared were completely removed and for the better. Obtaining cards is easier since you collect arcana cards that can then be used to summon the demon of your choice, but admittedly removes all fusion mechanics beyond adding cards into a summon to make a persona fundamentally different. This removes the fun of fusion, but with the level of tedium from Persona 1, I understand the change as it is here until future Persona games bring back fusion into a more enjoyable experience like other SMT games.
The actual combat becomes a lot closer to what fans are familiar with in future SMT titles as well as future Persona titles, though rather than have a press turn function, the combat is focused mostly on fusion. The character's bonds in this game are the focus and this comes in through fusion attacks which combine different persona moves to get sometimes good results, and also group negotiation with demons to allow your party to cooperate to convince demons to lend you their cards. There is no longer any grid system which I found disappointing as I had enjoyed it, and instead it follows a more typical way of battling according to attacks always being able to target all enemies regardless of location. Elements were balanced much better and weaknesses, repels, and nullifications were much less common for enemies as well as personas making the game of finding enemy weaknesses to still be enjoyable. There wasn't enough justification for aiming for weaknesses instead of just attacking with your best attack that did neutral damage however, and as such the combat often just ended up being spamming your favorite persona's attack. With an auto-battle function, the game can very often play itself. This would be less of a problem, but this game is quite easy, and requires little strategy with few bosses offering much challenge. Furthermore, the experience gain, and the amount of encounters is still very high. This makes exploration take very long periods of time and I can say that this game plays much better with a fast forward function nowadays to fast forward through the otherwise slower combat. I overall did enjoy it, but mostly as a mindless grinding game where I was strategically planning my next persona summons, who would they be assigned to, and so forth. The economy also gets completely shattered later on with money being so easily available that you would be a fool not to buy 99 beads and 99 chewing souls which feels necessary in the last dungeon.
Onto the characters and story. Persona 2's introduction is fantastic. There is a great introduction to the characters of Lisa, Eikichi, Maya and Yukino through the rather quick paced plot. The idea of rumors being utilized and coming true along with people's wishes being granted at the cost of others is an intriguing and interesting plot. At many points, this is played in really clever and fun ways that play with expectations. The rumor mechanic also plays into gameplay though it is a rather minor part of the game in my opinion and could have been realized in a much more full way.
The story is willing to take dark turns with serial arsonists burning a man to death in front of you, as well as seeing characters be forgotten by their friends and family beyond persona users who can still perceive them. It brings up a twisted mentality for the villain Joker who sees dreams as something that can be a burden on those unready to realize them. The masked circle is a compelling group of antagonists and led by Joker leads to some very diverse and unique objectives and settings to defeat them.
Up until this point, the character bonds also are quite well handled, I particularly really enjoyed Eikichi and Maya who always had fun banter with each other and Lisa. Along with Yukino feeling a bit like an outsider beyond her bond with Maya, but still having deep connections to the Persona 1 cast. I could definitely see how this party dynamic would be used to influence Persona 4's, and I can see how this cast can be people's favorites just like future games as some people will resonate with this cast more.
This is until the halfway point of the game. At this point of the game, Innocent Sin takes a nosedive. Once you discover the secret of the main characters' amnesia and the motivations for Joker/Jun as an antagonist, I lost a great deal of suspension of disbelief. There is so much wrong with Jun's motivations. For one, he is trying to torture and kill the main party because of the perceived murder of Maya, yet Jun unlike Lisa, didn't look into the situation at the shrine a single time to find out that Maya was still alive basing this all on assumptions. Despite knowing who Tatsuya Sudou is, and how he is different from Tatsuya Suou, he immeidately believes that it is Suou's fault, even though he also knows that Sudou is a serial arsonist and even has him in the Masked Circle as one of his allies who is burning people alive and laying bombs around the city... On top of this, he also starts up the nazi rumors at this point, which were conspiracy theories written by his nazi sympathizer father (Who is not chastized at all for having written nazi propoganda). This all leading into an end of the world plot where Jun raises the city into the sky in order to bring about Xibalba to wipe out humanity to bring about an 'evolution'. This is mostly handwaved away with all the characters (Except maybe Tatsuya if you choose to play him as not forgiving Jun) forgiving Jun in an instant and mostly blaming it all on Nyarlothotep. Though, through numerous dialogue spots in the game, we find out that Jun was fully aware of what he was doing this entire time even without Nyarlathotep's influence. To me, this jumps the shark dramatically.
To expound on this, this is where we start dealing with character's shadows and I found most of them to be out of character or out of no where reveals that felt like shock value just like the nazis. Yukino reveals that she sleeps around despite there being no evidence that she would even think of doing this in Persona 1, and all the events of P2 where she seems faithful to her new lover, and in the 'bad' scene where you have Yukino not present to confront her shadow, she kisses Anna in a predatory way only pushing negative stereotypes about bi women sleeping around. With Lisa, there was absolutely no hint or clue that she had done drugs or swindled old men, which is baffling considering how much random dialogue we get in other scenes and locations. Yet not a single clue toward this. I would have been satisfied if we had an old man NPC comment about recognizing Lisa in one of the many store stops, but this isn't the case. It could be argued Lisa was doing a relatively harmless drug like marijuana, but the dialogue suggests something of a more extreme nature which again wasn't shown in any way through the story. Having known people who were negatively effected by drugs and drug addiction through my life this type of hamfisted shoving into a story I dislike greatly. Eikichi's isn't too offensive, but again conflicts with lines he had in stores where he admits the narcissism is an act and he regularly talks poorly about himself, only for his shadow to push this idea that he is entirely narcissistic. Though, this mostly was for Miyabi who was the more tragic character in this with her plotline being toward her being overweight and the almost shame she has for her self for it (Which I find offensive when her weight loss wasn't undone in the ending, undermining Eikichi's unconditional love for her). Tatsuya's is nice as it finally gives some dialogue to him when he's otherwise almost mute for the entire story, but wasn't something I'd comment much on.
Also pushing to a plot contrivance where Yukino loses her Persona to Jun, when Jun just could have gotten a new persona from numerous other ways. It seems like a weird way to force her out of the story when she could have just gone to fight with the rest of the Persona 1 cast seen at Tony's to help out the P2 cast in the background.
All of these plot points end up being very shallow for the most part and feel like a low point for the entire game.
Leading to the ending which starts to actually pick up again. Despite how far the shark was jumped and how my suspension of disbelief was blown, the sincere friendship I felt between the main cast had a lot of emotional beats that I enjoyed. Even leading to the ending having a rather beautiful and melancholic end, where Maya dies in a tragic way which distracts the party long enough for Nyarlathotep to destroy the world. There, given the choice by Philemon a god that was all but having a contest with Nyarlathotep with you as pawns to reverse Maya's death by forgetting all the events of the game. It is a tragic end that brings toward the memory plotline in a really sweet way, especially upon seeing the epilogue where the characters still end up being brought together despite their lack of shared memories. Giving the option to punch Philemon for using you as pawns is also satisfying.
This leads into my overall feelings for the story. I overall think that all the shock value moments were completely unnecessary and detracted from this game. All of the shadows and nazis could be removed, and replaced with more screen time for the Masked Circle and I think this game would be much more effective as a story. Furthermore, from all the rumors I had heard going into this story about Persona 2 having the best LGBT+ representation, I was greatly disappointed. Yukino shows really negative stereotypes toward bi women, and as do the two trans NPCs in the game with a trans woman being seen as disgusting by Eikichi before becoming vain and joining the villains, and the other is a trans man flashing their genitals to Tatsuya and Maya in a public store. Leading us finally to Jun and Tatsuya. For its time, Jun being gay was a standout, but ultimately I was very unsatisfied with its implementation. I think that Jun and Tatsuya's relationship has a good set up with their past and is cute, however Jun's design is based off of stereotypes towards gay men being effeminate and particularly uses a lot of Freud's outdated and negative theories toward gay men being narcissistic which is evident by the game talks about Jun being Tatsuya's shadow and resembling him greatly using direct wording that Freud would. Ultimately this only adds to a single line of dialogue where Lisa hardly believes Tatsuya is serious and still plans to steal Tatsuya away anyway, a line of dialogue where Jun asks Tatsuya out to visit a restaurant with him, and finally their ability to hold hands in demon negotiations. I understand that this was a big deal for its time, and can understand why so many people who find interest in this considering the lack of content in 1999, however the game seems to treat it very poorly with the end game having Lisa kiss Tatsuya no matter who he chose, and also having a star-crossed lovers ending sequence with Maya even if you chose to pick Jun as your romantic partner. Jun gets nothing like this in the ending, which is incredibly disappointing and shows that he wasn't seen in the same light as Lisa and Maya at the time of the game's release. I am happy that there is at least this much, but I hope that I expressed why by no means I think that this game should be recommended for its LGBT+ content since its overall negative. The game has other merits to recommend it that I hope I have outlined in my review, but LGBT+ content, as well as the mishandled controversial topics before I mentioned are not.
The art of this game is very good, and I can see easily how this art direction carried forward to all future mainline titles. The increased number of character portraits allows for more expression in the game than in P1, and their expressiveness is honestly very impressive. Many faces either had me laugh out loud, or understand completely the pain the characters were going through. The spritework was also improved with the pixel art in the game, allowing models to move more fluidly, more animations, and also more detailed demons and personas despite each one being modeled in the four diagonal directions for combat. The music was stellar from what I could tell, and I loved the style of this game.
This all leading to my final conclusion of this game. Persona 2: Innocent Sin is plagued with rumors. People who have played very little of this game will make grandiose statements that will never live up to expectations, while some of its long term fans cannot possibly hope to express its strengths in a meaningful way without dulling the listener. Do not buy into the hype or negativity surrounding this game, you have to experience it yourself to understand what this game accomplishes and what it fails in since the rumors surrounding it will not give you a good idea of what you are in for (Though please play it with a speedup option to fast forward combat). This game both heavily inspired future Persona games, while also being its wholly own thing. It has high highs, and at times offensive low lows. It is a very experimental JRPG that both took confident steps forward, while also stumbling terribly at some portions. Persona 2: Innocent Sin gets a 3.5/5.
Persona 1 is ambitious. It is a game that had a lot of good ideas for a JRPG, that are still in games to this day and particularly in its own series. Though, the execution of those ideas leaves a lot to be desired.
There are two routes of the game, the original SEBEC in the original PS1 release, as well as Snow Queen Quest which is available in the PSP version. The former presents a decent story with some fun ideas and a fun cast depending on who you had in your party. It presents a typical JRPG adventure as one would expect with twists and turns and eventually fighting godlike beings. Snow Queen Quest by comparison feels like a romhack that while somehow made by the same team, feels a lot more meanspirited, and is a bit of an experimental mess that didn't result in much good.
Characterwise, Persona 1's cast is fine enough, albeit they are a rather typical cast of japanese high schoolers who have a few quirks. The most memorable probably being Mark as he strays the furthest from the anime archetype that many of the other characters end up being based off of. Most of these characters do have moments that are interesting and stray from typical writing, but most of the time they act like their generic counterparts in other media in the game itself. In many cases this is understandable, as most party members end up being optional in each route with the player being capable of having different teams depending on their choices. This does often effect group conversations, as often times the most optional of these characters such as Reiji has little to add in group conversations and otherwise feels standalone as opposed to being part of the party. However, characters specific to each route like Maki, Mark and Nanjo in SEBEC have a lot of interesting dialogue together and fun dynamics as a group which is what I often crave from in a party.
Story-wise, more than anything the ideas the game presents are interesting, but their execution can be quite lacking. I found the major villain of SEBEC to be rather bland and unappealing, with Maki more than taking the show. The storyline and themes it presents are quite interesting and can be seen to continue forward in future Persona games. Snow Queen Quest I do not think was handled well by any means, and often feels mean-spirited toward the antagonists either in their depiction, or criticisms of their lifestyles which can oftentimes feel sexist considering who wrote them in the first place.
Before moving on from story, I do want to note the absolute disgusting and uncomfortable topic of Tamaki who Tadashi based off of a crush and forced to reciprocate his love in game. This sort of thing has happened to me outside of this review, and I want to note how disgusting and unflattering it is to have a creator put a version of you into a game purely to romance with their self-insert when you had no interest in them irl. It is very uncomfortable and while a minor part of the story, is significant enough in SQQ to bring up as a large negative.
Now to the gameplay, Persona 1 uses a grid style for its gameplay, and despite what others say, I had enjoyed it quite a bit. Changing formation to give certain party members more reach and allow for their different persona skills could be enjoyable for experimentation and the actual statistics for combat worked excellently. Different weapon variety and different preferences for personas also helped distinguish each party member beyond merely their statistics, making each feel wholly unique. With all that being said, there are far too many elemental types. All physical weapons count as different categories, and there are all the various elements from every single SMT game prior, as well as tech, rush, and other elements that were baffling. Too many elements in fact that bogged down the experimentation aspect of SMT games. Why bother doing a hundred experiments to determine which of the 30 different element types the enemy is weak to, when you can just physically attack them where that works 90% of the time where then you'll have their log put in and always know their weaknesses and resistances from that point onward? It is redundant and boring and also trains players to be really bad with using skills. On top of this, is the fact that balancing toward enemies is really bad, especially toward late game enemies. In an attempt to justify the ridiculous number of elements, the game decides to also give enemies a ridiculous number of repels, absorbs, and more. This makes battling extremely tedious and needlessly unforgiving as it is very common to get wiped from enemies who repel all elements that you are not aware of until you have already selected all your party's attacks. Especially when meeting mixed groups of enemies. Since all your party members need to have their action prepared prior to getting to see them all play out, you can't adjust after seeing a repel or absorb until AFTER every party member has already attacked and at that point it is typically too late and you will be left on death's door for the enemy to wipe you out.
This now will get us into the overall difficulty of the game. Overall, both SEBEC and SQQ are not very long. However, the game artificially expands them both by making experience gain low in comparison to the enemies you are fighting, has far too many enemies that can instant kill your party at numerous points to reload saves, as well as by adding in far too many convoluted systems to leveling up. There is your character's character level, their persona level, as well as the Persona they currently have equipped with a rank. To level up your character, you must participate in combat, otherwise your experience will be lower. If one party member is overperforming since you are in a zone where their persona performs very well, they can easily become an EXP sponge and drain all resources from the rest of your party for the forseeable future. Then, there is persona levels, which determines the level of personas your characters can equip, which is SUPPOSED to go up faster and take up more experience away from your character level when you use your personas skills... But often times, this is not the case, and even using your persona's skills to wipe out all enemies will STILL result in your persona level experience being lower than your character level experience for that encounter. The actual numbers on this are strange and rarely make sense making grinding even more tedious. Speaking of tedious, lets talk about persona ranks. Every Persona in the game has a rank from 1-8, with 8 being their max. To level up your persona's rank, you must have them equipped, and you must be using their skills in combat. However, this experience is a single point, for EACH USE OF SKILL. Meaning, to max a Persona out to rank 8, where they have their full stats unlocked as well as actually having all their spells, you have to use that singular Persona upwards to 226 times if your character is not 10 LEVELS HIGHER THAN THE PERSONA. This adds another level of tedium as some personas don't even get good skills until they reach rank 5, which will be painful to grind out until then. All of these come together to make a tedious grinding fest that while it can feel rewarding due to the results you get from it, rarely does due to the game's balancing and usually only for a few rare personas. Combat encounters lose their charm after so many of them, and they are so poorly balanced. Boss fights either are a test of how much you have grinded up, especially with the final bosses, or absolute push-overs that require no strategy.
This takes us to the next level of tedium, the maps. I do not understand how these maps came into existence. I do not know who made these maps. I wouldn't be surprised if they were made by a 60s AI running on a IBM computer with 1KB processor that skips every 2 seconds, or a blind monkey with carpal tunnel scribbling on a piece of paper. These maps make no sense. For one, there are so many dead ends that it is non-sensical. Dungeon exploration is done in first person, and unlike later games that also do first person dungeon exploration (INCLUDING OTHER SMT GAMES), there are no chests or items on the dungeon maps. Meaning any dead end you go down, is utterly and pathetically useless. In fact, its worse than useless as the high encounter rate means that every dead end you go down will waste time with another random encounter. If you see a dead end, don't 100% complete the map, ignore it since they are actually wasting your time. There are so many of these, and the maps have no rhyme or reason in how they are designed that I am in awe of their terribleness. In a sense, perhaps being charitable we could say the developers wanted to make the dungeons feel unrealistic, strange and Euclidean to reflect the game's dream and otherworldly aspects like Alice in Wonderland. I refuse this as they are not even designed well in that sense since they are still absolutely incomprehensible. The better assumption is to assume they are this bad solely to sell game guides and to also pad out the game longer than its short runtime in order to get players playing longer and make the game sound longer.
My final note on gameplay is that the isometric view in rooms that is iconic to this game to give the sprites for the characters more expression also had really bad controls due to the fact that it was mapped funny to the directional buttons. Pressing down moved you left, pressing up moved you right and it took a lot of time to get used to this. You will eventually get used to it, but it certainly wasn't the best design decision.
All of this is to say, that this game had good ideas, but their execution was terrible in most senses. You can see these ideas further evolved, refined, and made much better in future Persona games.
I do not have much to say about the music, as I am a bit tone deaf, but the music was often good from the original PS1 soundtrack that I was listening to while playing the PSP version. Albeit, some tracks feel very out of place in certain scenes, particularly with the SEBEC ending sequence bafflingly choosing the goofy soundtrack during a very emotional sequence. The art was good, and conveyed the characters well especially in promotional material which has had its style used for every subsequent Persona game through future artists new interpretations. The pixel art wasn't outstanding compared to other games that came out at the same time, but it was serviceable and gave an idea of what each thing you were looking at was supposed to be.
Looking at all of this together, and coming back to my experience with the game... I respect Persona 1 for what it was able to accomplish and what it was on the Playstation 1. It was a truly unique game and it kickstarted one of my favorite franchises while having some excellent ideas that have been brought forward to many modern games. That being said, I do not think anyone should go back to play this game. For all of the numerous issues I mentioned above, I do not think it is worth coming back to this game compared to other JRPGs on the PS1 and if you are really curious you should watch a playthrough on Youtube instead. It has aged poorly, what it offers in story has been done better in other games since, and while being enjoyable at the start of the game especially if you have the means of speeding up the gameplay by fastforwarding combat, does overstay its welcome even in just the SEBEC route, let alone playing the clunky Snow Queen Quest route that I feel bogs down the game even further. Despite its numerous flaws and how I do not think anyone should play this game in the modern day, for its legacy, Persona 1 for the time it was released gets a 3/5 for the contributions it made to the medium.
There are two routes of the game, the original SEBEC in the original PS1 release, as well as Snow Queen Quest which is available in the PSP version. The former presents a decent story with some fun ideas and a fun cast depending on who you had in your party. It presents a typical JRPG adventure as one would expect with twists and turns and eventually fighting godlike beings. Snow Queen Quest by comparison feels like a romhack that while somehow made by the same team, feels a lot more meanspirited, and is a bit of an experimental mess that didn't result in much good.
Characterwise, Persona 1's cast is fine enough, albeit they are a rather typical cast of japanese high schoolers who have a few quirks. The most memorable probably being Mark as he strays the furthest from the anime archetype that many of the other characters end up being based off of. Most of these characters do have moments that are interesting and stray from typical writing, but most of the time they act like their generic counterparts in other media in the game itself. In many cases this is understandable, as most party members end up being optional in each route with the player being capable of having different teams depending on their choices. This does often effect group conversations, as often times the most optional of these characters such as Reiji has little to add in group conversations and otherwise feels standalone as opposed to being part of the party. However, characters specific to each route like Maki, Mark and Nanjo in SEBEC have a lot of interesting dialogue together and fun dynamics as a group which is what I often crave from in a party.
Story-wise, more than anything the ideas the game presents are interesting, but their execution can be quite lacking. I found the major villain of SEBEC to be rather bland and unappealing, with Maki more than taking the show. The storyline and themes it presents are quite interesting and can be seen to continue forward in future Persona games. Snow Queen Quest I do not think was handled well by any means, and often feels mean-spirited toward the antagonists either in their depiction, or criticisms of their lifestyles which can oftentimes feel sexist considering who wrote them in the first place.
Before moving on from story, I do want to note the absolute disgusting and uncomfortable topic of Tamaki who Tadashi based off of a crush and forced to reciprocate his love in game. This sort of thing has happened to me outside of this review, and I want to note how disgusting and unflattering it is to have a creator put a version of you into a game purely to romance with their self-insert when you had no interest in them irl. It is very uncomfortable and while a minor part of the story, is significant enough in SQQ to bring up as a large negative.
Now to the gameplay, Persona 1 uses a grid style for its gameplay, and despite what others say, I had enjoyed it quite a bit. Changing formation to give certain party members more reach and allow for their different persona skills could be enjoyable for experimentation and the actual statistics for combat worked excellently. Different weapon variety and different preferences for personas also helped distinguish each party member beyond merely their statistics, making each feel wholly unique. With all that being said, there are far too many elemental types. All physical weapons count as different categories, and there are all the various elements from every single SMT game prior, as well as tech, rush, and other elements that were baffling. Too many elements in fact that bogged down the experimentation aspect of SMT games. Why bother doing a hundred experiments to determine which of the 30 different element types the enemy is weak to, when you can just physically attack them where that works 90% of the time where then you'll have their log put in and always know their weaknesses and resistances from that point onward? It is redundant and boring and also trains players to be really bad with using skills. On top of this, is the fact that balancing toward enemies is really bad, especially toward late game enemies. In an attempt to justify the ridiculous number of elements, the game decides to also give enemies a ridiculous number of repels, absorbs, and more. This makes battling extremely tedious and needlessly unforgiving as it is very common to get wiped from enemies who repel all elements that you are not aware of until you have already selected all your party's attacks. Especially when meeting mixed groups of enemies. Since all your party members need to have their action prepared prior to getting to see them all play out, you can't adjust after seeing a repel or absorb until AFTER every party member has already attacked and at that point it is typically too late and you will be left on death's door for the enemy to wipe you out.
This now will get us into the overall difficulty of the game. Overall, both SEBEC and SQQ are not very long. However, the game artificially expands them both by making experience gain low in comparison to the enemies you are fighting, has far too many enemies that can instant kill your party at numerous points to reload saves, as well as by adding in far too many convoluted systems to leveling up. There is your character's character level, their persona level, as well as the Persona they currently have equipped with a rank. To level up your character, you must participate in combat, otherwise your experience will be lower. If one party member is overperforming since you are in a zone where their persona performs very well, they can easily become an EXP sponge and drain all resources from the rest of your party for the forseeable future. Then, there is persona levels, which determines the level of personas your characters can equip, which is SUPPOSED to go up faster and take up more experience away from your character level when you use your personas skills... But often times, this is not the case, and even using your persona's skills to wipe out all enemies will STILL result in your persona level experience being lower than your character level experience for that encounter. The actual numbers on this are strange and rarely make sense making grinding even more tedious. Speaking of tedious, lets talk about persona ranks. Every Persona in the game has a rank from 1-8, with 8 being their max. To level up your persona's rank, you must have them equipped, and you must be using their skills in combat. However, this experience is a single point, for EACH USE OF SKILL. Meaning, to max a Persona out to rank 8, where they have their full stats unlocked as well as actually having all their spells, you have to use that singular Persona upwards to 226 times if your character is not 10 LEVELS HIGHER THAN THE PERSONA. This adds another level of tedium as some personas don't even get good skills until they reach rank 5, which will be painful to grind out until then. All of these come together to make a tedious grinding fest that while it can feel rewarding due to the results you get from it, rarely does due to the game's balancing and usually only for a few rare personas. Combat encounters lose their charm after so many of them, and they are so poorly balanced. Boss fights either are a test of how much you have grinded up, especially with the final bosses, or absolute push-overs that require no strategy.
This takes us to the next level of tedium, the maps. I do not understand how these maps came into existence. I do not know who made these maps. I wouldn't be surprised if they were made by a 60s AI running on a IBM computer with 1KB processor that skips every 2 seconds, or a blind monkey with carpal tunnel scribbling on a piece of paper. These maps make no sense. For one, there are so many dead ends that it is non-sensical. Dungeon exploration is done in first person, and unlike later games that also do first person dungeon exploration (INCLUDING OTHER SMT GAMES), there are no chests or items on the dungeon maps. Meaning any dead end you go down, is utterly and pathetically useless. In fact, its worse than useless as the high encounter rate means that every dead end you go down will waste time with another random encounter. If you see a dead end, don't 100% complete the map, ignore it since they are actually wasting your time. There are so many of these, and the maps have no rhyme or reason in how they are designed that I am in awe of their terribleness. In a sense, perhaps being charitable we could say the developers wanted to make the dungeons feel unrealistic, strange and Euclidean to reflect the game's dream and otherworldly aspects like Alice in Wonderland. I refuse this as they are not even designed well in that sense since they are still absolutely incomprehensible. The better assumption is to assume they are this bad solely to sell game guides and to also pad out the game longer than its short runtime in order to get players playing longer and make the game sound longer.
My final note on gameplay is that the isometric view in rooms that is iconic to this game to give the sprites for the characters more expression also had really bad controls due to the fact that it was mapped funny to the directional buttons. Pressing down moved you left, pressing up moved you right and it took a lot of time to get used to this. You will eventually get used to it, but it certainly wasn't the best design decision.
All of this is to say, that this game had good ideas, but their execution was terrible in most senses. You can see these ideas further evolved, refined, and made much better in future Persona games.
I do not have much to say about the music, as I am a bit tone deaf, but the music was often good from the original PS1 soundtrack that I was listening to while playing the PSP version. Albeit, some tracks feel very out of place in certain scenes, particularly with the SEBEC ending sequence bafflingly choosing the goofy soundtrack during a very emotional sequence. The art was good, and conveyed the characters well especially in promotional material which has had its style used for every subsequent Persona game through future artists new interpretations. The pixel art wasn't outstanding compared to other games that came out at the same time, but it was serviceable and gave an idea of what each thing you were looking at was supposed to be.
Looking at all of this together, and coming back to my experience with the game... I respect Persona 1 for what it was able to accomplish and what it was on the Playstation 1. It was a truly unique game and it kickstarted one of my favorite franchises while having some excellent ideas that have been brought forward to many modern games. That being said, I do not think anyone should go back to play this game. For all of the numerous issues I mentioned above, I do not think it is worth coming back to this game compared to other JRPGs on the PS1 and if you are really curious you should watch a playthrough on Youtube instead. It has aged poorly, what it offers in story has been done better in other games since, and while being enjoyable at the start of the game especially if you have the means of speeding up the gameplay by fastforwarding combat, does overstay its welcome even in just the SEBEC route, let alone playing the clunky Snow Queen Quest route that I feel bogs down the game even further. Despite its numerous flaws and how I do not think anyone should play this game in the modern day, for its legacy, Persona 1 for the time it was released gets a 3/5 for the contributions it made to the medium.
2021
Vampire Survivors is the video game equivalent of junk food. The game is excellently crafted in a surprisingly cheap way to bring you the most enjoyment in the shortest amount of time. The game itself is the best of its type, being an addictive game in the same vein as idle games, but with a touch more gameplay than normal. That slight bit of gameplay is all it needs to be able to be an enjoyable experience with everything else in the game being automated. The upgrades presented inside the gameplay itself alter the gameplay dramatically and can give builds that are satisfying, overpowered, and game breaking in a way that is a taste of the sort of game breaking builds you would make in traditional JRPG games in the past. Including roguelike mechanics for getting even more powerful outside of stages with every single run in a way that has been struggled to be replicated by competitors such as HoloCure that struggles to provide the same level of flexibility and enjoyment in its roguelike mechanics.
Vampire Survivors is fast, easy to get into, and can get challenging in the late game without sufficient grinding. By all accounts, this is a fun game that I should be able to recommend to any friend.
However, the game itself is horribly cheap. It preys upon players with its gambling adjacent mechanics such as its treasure chests, it reuses and barely modifies original sprites from other games, as well as using other prominant game art for reference to its artwork in game. It has nothing really unique to add as everything is a parody of Castlevania, and even its music is simply rip-offs of the pixel era of those games.
Vampire Survivors is a junk food. When you're bored and want something quick to play, this game will be servicable and very enjoyable with some quick packed extreme flavor. Though, it is clearly unhealthy for you and not going to be nearly the same as eating at a fantastic restaurant for a masterclass steak. Though, with its cheap price point and lack of micro-DLC and actual real world gambling or loot-boxes, I can't really look at this as something negative. It had wrapped me around its finger for my 100% completion of the game. Sometimes you really just want to eat your favorite flavor of chips, health be damned. Just remember to have a proper meal afterward.
Vampire Survivors is fast, easy to get into, and can get challenging in the late game without sufficient grinding. By all accounts, this is a fun game that I should be able to recommend to any friend.
However, the game itself is horribly cheap. It preys upon players with its gambling adjacent mechanics such as its treasure chests, it reuses and barely modifies original sprites from other games, as well as using other prominant game art for reference to its artwork in game. It has nothing really unique to add as everything is a parody of Castlevania, and even its music is simply rip-offs of the pixel era of those games.
Vampire Survivors is a junk food. When you're bored and want something quick to play, this game will be servicable and very enjoyable with some quick packed extreme flavor. Though, it is clearly unhealthy for you and not going to be nearly the same as eating at a fantastic restaurant for a masterclass steak. Though, with its cheap price point and lack of micro-DLC and actual real world gambling or loot-boxes, I can't really look at this as something negative. It had wrapped me around its finger for my 100% completion of the game. Sometimes you really just want to eat your favorite flavor of chips, health be damned. Just remember to have a proper meal afterward.
2019
This review contains spoilers
Persona 5 Royal is a confusing expansion game. For my thoughts of Persona 5 Vanilla, you can read my other backloggd review for it as ultimately Royal has not changed my mind about the original and in fact had only reinforced my views.
Royal is an interesting expansion, as all the gameplay mechanics that were added, from new locations to have more events to do during the scheduled free time, the bonus free time events, the new battle mechanics including updated gun utility, emergencies in the Velvet room, expanded baton passes, and more are all welcome changes and I think the game is better for them. However, the story additions are hit or miss.
The new scenes added into the base game are some of the weakest in terms of writing I have seen in the series. With a few exceptions, these only highlight and show how weak the relationship between the Phantom Thieves is and only highlights the core flaw in how little chemistry they have together as a group. Notable examples come up with Yusuke and Ryuji's team attack conversation, and Haru and Makoto's team attack conversations feeling like they were written by robots considering how awkward and clunky they felt for introducing their show time attacks. There is still an exception for this, such as the barbecue cleanup event near the start of the game, but largely all of the added in scenes in Royal into the base game are very weak.
That being said, the writing toward the end game content and Maruki was incredible. Maruki works as a perfect antagonist to the Phantom Thieves, being the logical extreme of their actions in the Metaverse. To be able to condemn Maruki, you must first condemn the actions of the Phantom Thieves, and to believe the Phantom Thieves are correct is to believe that Maruki is correct in their forms of vigilantism. Maruki is highly sympathetic and an excellent morally complex villain who when standing next to the laughably evil villain of Shido in the game fits in well. Everything involving Maruki also gives me hope for future Persona games, such as bringing back the ideas of Personas going berserk, having Personas communicate with their user like Sumire, having a Persona user in control of their own palace/metaverse/TV World, and even expanding on ideas about unique powers to wild cards revolving around the Metaverse. These ideas were all excellent and make me excited for potential story beats in the future of P6.
All of that being said, while the narrative writing toward Maruki was excellent, it did not fit into the rest of the game's themes of rebellion. To say that you are rebelling against Maruki's world is a bit of a stretch and feels out of place as opposed to seeing him as a rival since he is using the same methods that the Phantom Thieves use. Yaldaboath by comparison as a final boss encapsulates those themes of rebellion best, and Maruki being after him weakens those themes a lot. Maruki in the end then only feels like side content, or REALLY GOOD DLC, as opposed to being an organic and natural part of Persona 5.
As well, all of the character writing is incredibly weak aside from Maruki, and some new additions toward Akechi in his social link and third semester. Sumire while being charming and having an excellent narrative in the story, has very weak character writing along with the rest of the Phantom Thieves. This is very disconcerning considering that Persona is a series that is founded on the ideas of character, character growth, accepting oneself, relationships, etc. that are all cores of the series. So, while I have confidence now that the new content in Persona 6 following this new writer will likely have an excellent narrative and story, I am very concerned and am looking toward Persona 6 with trepidation due to its weak character writing.
All in all, Persona 5 Royal is something I would say is worth playing if you have already played and enjoyed Persona 5 Original. However, nothing new added here is going to change your mind on the original game. If you already dislike the Phantom Thieves and the narrative, then this game will not change your mind, and the tacked on DLC of Maruki while being excellent does not feel naturally incorporated into the game. Though, if you already liked Persona 5 original, the new content added will be something you enjoy greatly, and Maruki will simply be a side dish that is ordered to help with the rest of the main dish. I am not sure I would recommend this as your first Persona game if you had not played any of the games before.
Amazing art, mediocre story with some highlight moments, excellent gameplay, ok characters, fantastic soundtrack, and an overall style that is hard to compete with. 4 / 5.
Royal is an interesting expansion, as all the gameplay mechanics that were added, from new locations to have more events to do during the scheduled free time, the bonus free time events, the new battle mechanics including updated gun utility, emergencies in the Velvet room, expanded baton passes, and more are all welcome changes and I think the game is better for them. However, the story additions are hit or miss.
The new scenes added into the base game are some of the weakest in terms of writing I have seen in the series. With a few exceptions, these only highlight and show how weak the relationship between the Phantom Thieves is and only highlights the core flaw in how little chemistry they have together as a group. Notable examples come up with Yusuke and Ryuji's team attack conversation, and Haru and Makoto's team attack conversations feeling like they were written by robots considering how awkward and clunky they felt for introducing their show time attacks. There is still an exception for this, such as the barbecue cleanup event near the start of the game, but largely all of the added in scenes in Royal into the base game are very weak.
That being said, the writing toward the end game content and Maruki was incredible. Maruki works as a perfect antagonist to the Phantom Thieves, being the logical extreme of their actions in the Metaverse. To be able to condemn Maruki, you must first condemn the actions of the Phantom Thieves, and to believe the Phantom Thieves are correct is to believe that Maruki is correct in their forms of vigilantism. Maruki is highly sympathetic and an excellent morally complex villain who when standing next to the laughably evil villain of Shido in the game fits in well. Everything involving Maruki also gives me hope for future Persona games, such as bringing back the ideas of Personas going berserk, having Personas communicate with their user like Sumire, having a Persona user in control of their own palace/metaverse/TV World, and even expanding on ideas about unique powers to wild cards revolving around the Metaverse. These ideas were all excellent and make me excited for potential story beats in the future of P6.
All of that being said, while the narrative writing toward Maruki was excellent, it did not fit into the rest of the game's themes of rebellion. To say that you are rebelling against Maruki's world is a bit of a stretch and feels out of place as opposed to seeing him as a rival since he is using the same methods that the Phantom Thieves use. Yaldaboath by comparison as a final boss encapsulates those themes of rebellion best, and Maruki being after him weakens those themes a lot. Maruki in the end then only feels like side content, or REALLY GOOD DLC, as opposed to being an organic and natural part of Persona 5.
As well, all of the character writing is incredibly weak aside from Maruki, and some new additions toward Akechi in his social link and third semester. Sumire while being charming and having an excellent narrative in the story, has very weak character writing along with the rest of the Phantom Thieves. This is very disconcerning considering that Persona is a series that is founded on the ideas of character, character growth, accepting oneself, relationships, etc. that are all cores of the series. So, while I have confidence now that the new content in Persona 6 following this new writer will likely have an excellent narrative and story, I am very concerned and am looking toward Persona 6 with trepidation due to its weak character writing.
All in all, Persona 5 Royal is something I would say is worth playing if you have already played and enjoyed Persona 5 Original. However, nothing new added here is going to change your mind on the original game. If you already dislike the Phantom Thieves and the narrative, then this game will not change your mind, and the tacked on DLC of Maruki while being excellent does not feel naturally incorporated into the game. Though, if you already liked Persona 5 original, the new content added will be something you enjoy greatly, and Maruki will simply be a side dish that is ordered to help with the rest of the main dish. I am not sure I would recommend this as your first Persona game if you had not played any of the games before.
Amazing art, mediocre story with some highlight moments, excellent gameplay, ok characters, fantastic soundtrack, and an overall style that is hard to compete with. 4 / 5.
2017
Nier Automata is one of the few games that I feel comfortable giving a five out of five stars for when it had come out. It serves as a good basis for my rating system.
No game is flawless, however Nier: Automata is quite close. As a piece of art, Automata is beautiful, and tells a rich story with a strong message and themes that say something. It has a deep and engaging combat system that allows for casual play, or complexity for those interested in exploring it. All while having unique experimental gameplay to fully immerse the player through interactivity. It has an excellent soundtrack, and it has excellent characters. The style it has was so impactful that it has been taken by many modern games. It really does everything I can ask for from a game, and moves the medium forward.
It has its flaws, A2 and 2B do not get enough screen time and must share their stories, making 9S the focus when it was meant to be a story with multiple protagonists. Some later challenges can get repetitive, and some RPG mechanics can feel a bit tacked on.
However, none of these flaws I feel is significant enough to take away from all of the positives that make this game great. Nier: Automata is not my favorite game, but it is the closest to what I picture a perfect game is in my mind. Something that dares to say something and take risks, something that fully utilizes the medium of games by incorporating engaging interactivity, something that takes full advantage of audio and visuals.
No game is flawless, however Nier: Automata is quite close. As a piece of art, Automata is beautiful, and tells a rich story with a strong message and themes that say something. It has a deep and engaging combat system that allows for casual play, or complexity for those interested in exploring it. All while having unique experimental gameplay to fully immerse the player through interactivity. It has an excellent soundtrack, and it has excellent characters. The style it has was so impactful that it has been taken by many modern games. It really does everything I can ask for from a game, and moves the medium forward.
It has its flaws, A2 and 2B do not get enough screen time and must share their stories, making 9S the focus when it was meant to be a story with multiple protagonists. Some later challenges can get repetitive, and some RPG mechanics can feel a bit tacked on.
However, none of these flaws I feel is significant enough to take away from all of the positives that make this game great. Nier: Automata is not my favorite game, but it is the closest to what I picture a perfect game is in my mind. Something that dares to say something and take risks, something that fully utilizes the medium of games by incorporating engaging interactivity, something that takes full advantage of audio and visuals.
It has high highs, and ridiculously low lows. It has the bones of a good sci-fi detective mystery, it has a lot of interesting moving pieces, and it has some very good ideas. But ultimately it fumbles them in its execution as it attempts to act similar to Phoenix Wright's comedic tone, when the game functions better as a serious crime thriller. The comedy as well largely hinges on half the jokes being toward or in spite of women compared to Phoenix Wright, which makes the game much like the Yakuza series, something that I cannot in any good faith ever recommend to any of my woman friends.
Iris route is really bad, both in how it barely serves to forward the plot until the true ending, as well as how Iris can really grate on the player when she isn't just a side character. The fact you can choose Iris route first purely by a 50/50 coin flip at the start of the game can make the game rough to play. It is hard to describe just how much better Mizuki route is.
There are some really good and solid characters that are dragged down by some legitimately really awful ones with Aiba and Date's relationship being a highlight. Visuals and style could be beautiful, but also rough around the edges as it was clear they were working with a small budget. Playing around with dreams could be quite interesting but many puzzles were guesswork as a result. The action sequences could be funny, but were generally pretty bad. There was a lot of heart in here, but... Overall... Weakest of the big Mystery VNs in my opinion.
Iris route is really bad, both in how it barely serves to forward the plot until the true ending, as well as how Iris can really grate on the player when she isn't just a side character. The fact you can choose Iris route first purely by a 50/50 coin flip at the start of the game can make the game rough to play. It is hard to describe just how much better Mizuki route is.
There are some really good and solid characters that are dragged down by some legitimately really awful ones with Aiba and Date's relationship being a highlight. Visuals and style could be beautiful, but also rough around the edges as it was clear they were working with a small budget. Playing around with dreams could be quite interesting but many puzzles were guesswork as a result. The action sequences could be funny, but were generally pretty bad. There was a lot of heart in here, but... Overall... Weakest of the big Mystery VNs in my opinion.