Trent
It’s not my main gripe about the game because I understand that Xenosaga was going to be a six(?) part series at one point and that it’s hard to judge the characters and story based off of the first entry, but this was actually pushing me to my limits. These are some of the most one dimensional characters and while some of them, such as Ziggy, had their interesting and honestly really engaging startups, right when his section of the game ended, so any hope of furthering his character development did as well. Mere hours after rolling credits, I’m having trouble remembering their names and importance to the story.
The lack of story was hardly an issue but when paired with a nonexistent soundtrack, thats what really did me over. It’s not that the songs that are there are bad by any means and if anything I’m a fan of Yasunori Mitsuda’s work as I’ve even gone as far as playing games solely because his work was in it… but there’s no soundtrack here. Who thought it would be a good idea to have the normal battle theme remain the only constant battle theme throughout the entire game? There’s not even a boss theme, it just plays the regular battle theme. The game wasn’t ever extraordinarily hard but I would have preferred feeling a sense of differentiation when battling special enemies or bosses, but instead I was forced to hear this song the entire game. Tragically, when I wasn’t fighting slow and mundane battles that lasted an eternity (and then some thanks to the music), I was enduring silence. Like actual silence because there’s no overworld music unless there’s a crisis or something. Atmosphere matters and all and you want to show how empty outer space is or whatever underlying value there is to that strange decision, but man I’m seriously not begging to go from silence to that battle theme every 10 seconds. At one point I even preferred the silence because I got so sick of the battle theme and decided to make the silence permanent by lowering my volume to 0. Honestly that made the game just a little more bearable.
Outside of that, while the menus are a fucking monster and I couldn’t ever figure out where which option might lead to, I actually enjoyed the systems. You can extract skills from accessories and then equip 3 skills to characters, there’s a skill tree that while grindy at times, allowed you to “transfer” (the realistic term is copy) skills to other party members which was great since I could put a strong multi-heal skill on multiple characters at once. On top of those, you can also use points to raise your stats manually, which is great for customizing characters, and if you couldn’t tell already customizing is what this game does best without a doubt. I don’t want to make it sound groundbreaking or anything but it was always fun finding ways to break the game. Except when I had to grind. I love grinding but this game made me dread the thought of it.
Exploration in this game consists of either
1. Labyrinth hallways that you constantly get lost in if you have a short attention span and don’t know the exact place your goal resides (the ships)
2. Straight hallways with occasional detours to treasure (the ground levels)
The takeaway? They both fucking suck.
I should add that there are these decoders (keys) to secret doors that you can find and get some pretty good accessories from, and when you’re able to extract the skill from them, combat becomes much more fun because the battles are usually over in a turn or two. You’re able to revisit levels as you progress into the game, so that means you might find decoder 6 in a later level, and you kind of remember seeing door 6 in one of those earlier levels but don’t quite remember where, so you scour the entire level fighting the level 2 galactic hemoglobins to find it. Yes, it’s about as fun as it sounds (it’s not).
I’m sunk cost into this franchise so I’ll play the other two, but man… This fucking blows. Now I’m being told that Xenosaga 2 is even worse… fuck.
The lack of story was hardly an issue but when paired with a nonexistent soundtrack, thats what really did me over. It’s not that the songs that are there are bad by any means and if anything I’m a fan of Yasunori Mitsuda’s work as I’ve even gone as far as playing games solely because his work was in it… but there’s no soundtrack here. Who thought it would be a good idea to have the normal battle theme remain the only constant battle theme throughout the entire game? There’s not even a boss theme, it just plays the regular battle theme. The game wasn’t ever extraordinarily hard but I would have preferred feeling a sense of differentiation when battling special enemies or bosses, but instead I was forced to hear this song the entire game. Tragically, when I wasn’t fighting slow and mundane battles that lasted an eternity (and then some thanks to the music), I was enduring silence. Like actual silence because there’s no overworld music unless there’s a crisis or something. Atmosphere matters and all and you want to show how empty outer space is or whatever underlying value there is to that strange decision, but man I’m seriously not begging to go from silence to that battle theme every 10 seconds. At one point I even preferred the silence because I got so sick of the battle theme and decided to make the silence permanent by lowering my volume to 0. Honestly that made the game just a little more bearable.
Outside of that, while the menus are a fucking monster and I couldn’t ever figure out where which option might lead to, I actually enjoyed the systems. You can extract skills from accessories and then equip 3 skills to characters, there’s a skill tree that while grindy at times, allowed you to “transfer” (the realistic term is copy) skills to other party members which was great since I could put a strong multi-heal skill on multiple characters at once. On top of those, you can also use points to raise your stats manually, which is great for customizing characters, and if you couldn’t tell already customizing is what this game does best without a doubt. I don’t want to make it sound groundbreaking or anything but it was always fun finding ways to break the game. Except when I had to grind. I love grinding but this game made me dread the thought of it.
Exploration in this game consists of either
1. Labyrinth hallways that you constantly get lost in if you have a short attention span and don’t know the exact place your goal resides (the ships)
2. Straight hallways with occasional detours to treasure (the ground levels)
The takeaway? They both fucking suck.
I should add that there are these decoders (keys) to secret doors that you can find and get some pretty good accessories from, and when you’re able to extract the skill from them, combat becomes much more fun because the battles are usually over in a turn or two. You’re able to revisit levels as you progress into the game, so that means you might find decoder 6 in a later level, and you kind of remember seeing door 6 in one of those earlier levels but don’t quite remember where, so you scour the entire level fighting the level 2 galactic hemoglobins to find it. Yes, it’s about as fun as it sounds (it’s not).
I’m sunk cost into this franchise so I’ll play the other two, but man… This fucking blows. Now I’m being told that Xenosaga 2 is even worse… fuck.
Once you beat this game ask yourself if there is a single change in the story that you prefer over the original. I get that isnt the point of the game at all but i cant stand this modernization and re-imagining shit that theyre doing
For the first 10 hours I was screaming “hell yeah!” because i do genuinely love these characters and i don’t think ill ever get bored of seeing them interact with each other, on top of that seeing the remade locations from the original and hearing the music from the best soundtrack ever remade in stunning orchestrations is as phenomenal as it is nostalgic, however a good 60% of the time it either feels like ive played this game 40 times before or i just hate it.
I could go on for days about why the gameplay, strictly the combat, is amazing and easily the best action based system in the series (even though the bar is nonexistent), though it stops being as impactful when all im doing is grinding out the uneventful and unneeded filler main story quests that are there just to make the game 30 hours longer to get to the fun combat. Push object A to point B then climb a yellow wall while following a map marker that shows you exactly where to go at all times I LOVE CONSUMING SLOP😋 Of course this also heavily applies to the mundane and surprisingly small “open world” which is cool for the first 30 minutes and then quickly becomes boring as you realize there’s really nothing to do in it aside from fight enemies and do occasional QTE sequences. It’s not the worst thing in the world, it’s just very generic.
The story is just fan service and while some elements are cool its actual slop and that’s alright because sometimes it’s ok to treat yourself to some junk food (shit like this game) after eating healthy greens (the original game) there was another joke i wanted to make but i can’t even remember i think im developing alzheimers something something cell degradation
Once you beat this game ask yourself if there is a single change in the story that you prefer over the original. I get that isnt the point of the game at all and that this is supposed to be its own thing or whatever, but i cant stand this modernization and re-imagining shit that theyre doing because they’re doing it so horribly wrong
For the first 10 hours I was screaming “hell yeah!” because i do genuinely love these characters and i don’t think ill ever get bored of seeing them interact with each other. That very well could be the best part about this game, because there wasn’t a point where I got bored of the character writing, and honestly it was one of the few things getting me through the boring ass story aside from seeing the remade locations and music, however a good 60% of the time it either feels like I’ve played this game 40 times before or I just hate it.
I could go on for days about why the gameplay, strictly the combat, is amazing and easily the best action based system in the series (even though the bar is nonexistent), though it stops being as impactful when all im doing is grinding out the uneventful and unneeded filler story that are there just to make the game 30 hours longer to get to the fun combat. Push object A to point B then climb a yellow wall while following a map marker that shows you exactly where to go at all times I LOVE CONSUMING SLOP😋and of course this also heavily applies to the mundane and surprisingly small “open world” which is cool for the first 30 minutes and then quickly becomes boring as you realize there’s really nothing to do in it aside from fight enemies and do occasional QTE sequences. I want to make it clear that im not one of those console warrior people who care about the world size and loading screens because i really could give less of a shit but I am a firm believer in quality over quantity and like most open slop games this doesn’t follow that mantra. It’s not the worst thing in the world, it’s just very, very generic. Also Charley or whatever that assholes name is has to shut the fuck up
The best way I can summarize my thoughts on the story is that it’s just fan service for really hardcore final fantasy 7 super fans who either dont know how to read between the lines or read between the lines too much. Like I’ve said about pretty much everything in this game… it’s cool…. But its just slop… and that’s alright because sometimes it’s ok to treat yourself to some junk food (shit like this game) after eating healthy greens (the original game) there was another joke i wanted to make but i can’t even remember i think im developing alzheimers something something cell degradation
I think what it comes down to is that this game is always either way too scared to do anything impactful during key story sequences or when it’s somewhat impactful it completely fumbles by doing some weird multiverse bullshit that shouldn’t have even a suggestion. I have not been a fan of anything they’ve done with FF7 and its characters since the original game and i guess crisis core and this is a key reason why. That being said, am i going to buy Final fantasy vii: reborn? Of course. I love slop💕😋 and i love final fantasy
For the first 10 hours I was screaming “hell yeah!” because i do genuinely love these characters and i don’t think ill ever get bored of seeing them interact with each other, on top of that seeing the remade locations from the original and hearing the music from the best soundtrack ever remade in stunning orchestrations is as phenomenal as it is nostalgic, however a good 60% of the time it either feels like ive played this game 40 times before or i just hate it.
I could go on for days about why the gameplay, strictly the combat, is amazing and easily the best action based system in the series (even though the bar is nonexistent), though it stops being as impactful when all im doing is grinding out the uneventful and unneeded filler main story quests that are there just to make the game 30 hours longer to get to the fun combat. Push object A to point B then climb a yellow wall while following a map marker that shows you exactly where to go at all times I LOVE CONSUMING SLOP😋 Of course this also heavily applies to the mundane and surprisingly small “open world” which is cool for the first 30 minutes and then quickly becomes boring as you realize there’s really nothing to do in it aside from fight enemies and do occasional QTE sequences. It’s not the worst thing in the world, it’s just very generic.
The story is just fan service and while some elements are cool its actual slop and that’s alright because sometimes it’s ok to treat yourself to some junk food (shit like this game) after eating healthy greens (the original game) there was another joke i wanted to make but i can’t even remember i think im developing alzheimers something something cell degradation
Once you beat this game ask yourself if there is a single change in the story that you prefer over the original. I get that isnt the point of the game at all and that this is supposed to be its own thing or whatever, but i cant stand this modernization and re-imagining shit that theyre doing because they’re doing it so horribly wrong
For the first 10 hours I was screaming “hell yeah!” because i do genuinely love these characters and i don’t think ill ever get bored of seeing them interact with each other. That very well could be the best part about this game, because there wasn’t a point where I got bored of the character writing, and honestly it was one of the few things getting me through the boring ass story aside from seeing the remade locations and music, however a good 60% of the time it either feels like I’ve played this game 40 times before or I just hate it.
I could go on for days about why the gameplay, strictly the combat, is amazing and easily the best action based system in the series (even though the bar is nonexistent), though it stops being as impactful when all im doing is grinding out the uneventful and unneeded filler story that are there just to make the game 30 hours longer to get to the fun combat. Push object A to point B then climb a yellow wall while following a map marker that shows you exactly where to go at all times I LOVE CONSUMING SLOP😋and of course this also heavily applies to the mundane and surprisingly small “open world” which is cool for the first 30 minutes and then quickly becomes boring as you realize there’s really nothing to do in it aside from fight enemies and do occasional QTE sequences. I want to make it clear that im not one of those console warrior people who care about the world size and loading screens because i really could give less of a shit but I am a firm believer in quality over quantity and like most open slop games this doesn’t follow that mantra. It’s not the worst thing in the world, it’s just very, very generic. Also Charley or whatever that assholes name is has to shut the fuck up
The best way I can summarize my thoughts on the story is that it’s just fan service for really hardcore final fantasy 7 super fans who either dont know how to read between the lines or read between the lines too much. Like I’ve said about pretty much everything in this game… it’s cool…. But its just slop… and that’s alright because sometimes it’s ok to treat yourself to some junk food (shit like this game) after eating healthy greens (the original game) there was another joke i wanted to make but i can’t even remember i think im developing alzheimers something something cell degradation
I think what it comes down to is that this game is always either way too scared to do anything impactful during key story sequences or when it’s somewhat impactful it completely fumbles by doing some weird multiverse bullshit that shouldn’t have even a suggestion. I have not been a fan of anything they’ve done with FF7 and its characters since the original game and i guess crisis core and this is a key reason why. That being said, am i going to buy Final fantasy vii: reborn? Of course. I love slop💕😋 and i love final fantasy
2005
Devil May Cry walked so God of War could fall off a cliff and die of a heart attack this game is so fucking ass
1996
I went into this expecting it to either be a pile of garbage or mid at best but came out thinking that Wild Arms is a standout title on the system that holds up to this day
Of course, it is lackluster in some areas. The puzzles can either be move object A to point A or be incomprehensible due to the horrible translation to the point where unless you trial and error it, you’re not getting through that locked door. Thankfully however, that only happened to me twice. Beyond that the game likes to give you no sense of direction on where to go next, and while I like that aspect a lot, it’s not for everyone. That’s ok though because im the only person that matters and none of you are real i dont think so this game is a 9/10 can’t wait to play the rest of the series very soon
Of course, it is lackluster in some areas. The puzzles can either be move object A to point A or be incomprehensible due to the horrible translation to the point where unless you trial and error it, you’re not getting through that locked door. Thankfully however, that only happened to me twice. Beyond that the game likes to give you no sense of direction on where to go next, and while I like that aspect a lot, it’s not for everyone. That’s ok though because im the only person that matters and none of you are real i dont think so this game is a 9/10 can’t wait to play the rest of the series very soon
1998
😈😈😈The perfect video game for a maniacal psychology major such as myself 😈😈😈. Sigmund freud's theory of personality and carl jung archetypes in MY turnbased video game 😈😈😈a truly spectacular sight to behold..........................😈
I would hate to be one of the people who refuse to play the game because it doesn't have social links, flashy UI and non first person gameplay just to miss out on what I consider to be a well told story that isn't as drawn out and boring as other persona games. I’m serious too, the first person gameplay really isn't bad and I can't understand what drew me away from this game when I first played it.
I figured I would have hated this game a lot more than I did, and it really isn't even bad at all. I had no trouble with the combat and fusing in this game and found it fun especially near the end of the game when things started opening up, I would even go as far to say that it's my favorite fusion system in the series since every character is able to equip three personas of your choosing. It’s never too overpowered because most of them usually have 4-5 moves max, though the game is really easy so I guess this doesn't really matter much Lol
Should be noted that in the psp version of this game, it's hard to pay attention to anything but the mini map when exploring mazes because the gameplay is too fast, even when you’re not running and toggling skip animations during battle. I'm not exaggerating either you're actually running at mach 5 and getting into constant encounters because for some reason they decided the encounter rate needed to be raised. To that end I wish I listened to my friend @Zotol and played the ps1 version when he told me to, but instead because he hates using the emulator I sent him what’s apparently a “half broken psp” even though it was perfectly fine aside from being smashed with a Warwood Tool 3 lb. Double-Faced Small Sledge Hammer - Tools for Home Improvement - Tools & Home Improvement - Made in the USA and being dropped in the toilet twice (he didn't notice though)
I loathe being called a persona fan so let's just leave it at "persona 1 fan"
I figured I would have hated this game a lot more than I did, and it really isn't even bad at all. I had no trouble with the combat and fusing in this game and found it fun especially near the end of the game when things started opening up, I would even go as far to say that it's my favorite fusion system in the series since every character is able to equip three personas of your choosing. It’s never too overpowered because most of them usually have 4-5 moves max, though the game is really easy so I guess this doesn't really matter much Lol
Should be noted that in the psp version of this game, it's hard to pay attention to anything but the mini map when exploring mazes because the gameplay is too fast, even when you’re not running and toggling skip animations during battle. I'm not exaggerating either you're actually running at mach 5 and getting into constant encounters because for some reason they decided the encounter rate needed to be raised. To that end I wish I listened to my friend @Zotol and played the ps1 version when he told me to, but instead because he hates using the emulator I sent him what’s apparently a “half broken psp” even though it was perfectly fine aside from being smashed with a Warwood Tool 3 lb. Double-Faced Small Sledge Hammer - Tools for Home Improvement - Tools & Home Improvement - Made in the USA and being dropped in the toilet twice (he didn't notice though)
I loathe being called a persona fan so let's just leave it at "persona 1 fan"
2020
They really said "Close your eyes" i mean shit say less
2006
Wish this didn't go down the path of being mobile game fodder because I have a lot of great memories on this game and made a lot of great friends that i still (for the most part) have today. Maturing is realizing that the world is a giant fucking circle and everyone youve ever known and loved links back to your childhood on roblox
I completed this game because when i was 15 i won an award for being a horrible animator I FUCKING WIN.
I completed this game because when i was 15 i won an award for being a horrible animator I FUCKING WIN.
1988
When i was a kid i went to my friends birthday party and some dumbass i never met before was playing this on my friends wii and i thought it looked cool so i asked
"What is that game"
Then he was like "i dunno"
Then i said "Well youre playing the game what the cr*p is it"
He responds "i dont know"
I beg "Do you know the name of the game atleast"
He grimaces and says "no"
...."Can i p-
"no"
So i leave the room and come back and the game is paused so i sit down and continue playing and according to my mom because at this point in the story for whatever reason shes sitting down near the couch that im playing the game on. The kid from before comes back and says "thats my game give it back" and im like "What" "dude give me my game back youre mean" For some reason according to my mom i just stare at him for 1 minute straight emotionless and he just leaves i have no recollection of this
Anyway, the game fucking sucks but it takes an hour to beat so if you want to digest some slop bone apple tit
"What is that game"
Then he was like "i dunno"
Then i said "Well youre playing the game what the cr*p is it"
He responds "i dont know"
I beg "Do you know the name of the game atleast"
He grimaces and says "no"
...."Can i p-
"no"
So i leave the room and come back and the game is paused so i sit down and continue playing and according to my mom because at this point in the story for whatever reason shes sitting down near the couch that im playing the game on. The kid from before comes back and says "thats my game give it back" and im like "What" "dude give me my game back youre mean" For some reason according to my mom i just stare at him for 1 minute straight emotionless and he just leaves i have no recollection of this
Anyway, the game fucking sucks but it takes an hour to beat so if you want to digest some slop bone apple tit
I want to preface this by saying that I play my games without using Google or any emulator cheats (fast forward / save states / actual cheats) because I feel that by using them, I’m disregarding the game’s design. From my understanding, people use them either because they have limited time to play games or they’re simply impatient and don’t want to deal with archaic design. To both ends, if you truly care about a game and are enjoying your time with it, why rush through it and ignore the pacing of the game? That’s not to say you can’t enjoy a game while fast forwarding and the like, for some it might help them enjoy it more… for me however, it ruins my enjoyment of the product.
I emphasize the above because the contacting system is abhorrent and easily the worst part of this game. I think it worked fine enough in the first game even if it was easily abusable and barebones, but this is just needlessly grindy for absolutely no reason. How it works is each character has 4 unique contact options that you can use to talk to a demon, given that you have 5 characters throughout the game, it easily becomes overwhelming. Depending on the personality of the demon and contact you chose, you will elicit an angry, happy, eager, or scared reaction. The goal is to make them eager so that you can get their arcana’s spell cards, though if you make them happy before doing so, you will get free cards that can be converted into any arcana card type in the velvet room. You can only have 3 happy demons at any given time as the would-be “buff” stays constant throughout the game, unless you make them angry, which is very easy to do. On random occasions, including at the very start of a battle, a demon will start talking to you, except during these sequences you pretty much have to guess what the correct answer is because they ask you questions like “if you were an animal what would you be human dog demon” and on my life I picked every single possible option for multiple demons, and they were all fucking wrong so i think it’s bugged or something. While that’s annoying, I found the fusing system to be fun, assuming I had enough cards to make what I wanted to make. I like the emphasis on spell cards, but I would be lying if I said I preferred this over the modern fusion systems, even though the game is hardly balanced around them.
On the topic of balancing, it’s all over the place. I played the PS1 version which is harder than the PSP remaster according to everyone, and for a good portion of the game all I was doing was getting into random encounters, even boss fights, and just auto battling. To extend on that, the combat system is centered around auto battling. You set your characters moves and press start battle. You can stop the auto battle whenever you want and check the turn order of your party members so you can plan your attacks accordingly, but outside of the final boss I pretty much turned my brain off the entire time, save for a select few instances. I don’t like this system because more than any RPG I’ve ever played, I get little to no reward or satisfaction mainly because I’m not pressing buttons as often. While some might see that fact as a good thing, I see it as mundane and boring. I make it sound bad, but in reality it barely affected me and it’s not like the difficulty is completely nonexistent, it’s there I just found it incredibly easy and manipulable is all. That final boss is some bullshit though. Game goes from being easy for about 15 hours to being extremely tedious and hard for no reason? Boring as hell
THE RUMORS SUCK. The system is there to remind you that the story involves rumors, and it fucking sucks. I don’t like talking to rumor mongerors with the clunky ass text boxes that plague the entire game and just don’t skip properly just to hear that Bimble Fuck Joe is selling his Sweaty Ass Shirt for 3 yen cheaper. Same people who defend this shit are the people who say Drakengard is a masterpiece because the gameplay sucks on purpose or whatever. I’m heavily overblowing it and this was hardly an issue because i did it twice throughout the entire game but it just made me realize how much i hated the textboxes in this game. Going back to that demon happiness shit for a second, if you have 3 contracts (3 happy demons) then the demon you’re currently trying to contact will ask you to replace one of the contracts so that they can be added, and for some god awful reason the developers thought it would be funny to have the dialogue option to appear at the least opportune time so that almost every single time I press the A button to progress the dialogue, the options appear and I annul the wrong contract. Every. Fucking. Time. Even when i'm careful I still somehow fuck it up. Yes, I know, skill issues and many such cases. Shit was made to make me fall asleep im not even going to lie spread a rumor to make my bed more comfortable. Booking the luxury suite at the Innocent Inn™ if it doesn't become a reality (joke donated by @Zotol)
Now that I aired my grievances, I liked the characters! I think they’re easily some of the best and most realistic ones in the series. I loathe how the modern persona games have these uninteresting and almost repetitive characters that for the life of me I just can’t give a single fuck about half the time, and for the first time I actually found myself caring about the issues and problems these characters are facing. They may not be as realized or fleshed out in this game as I would have liked them to be, but they were nonetheless impactful, more so than half of the slop the modern games shoved down my throat and I’m sure they will be even more amazing in the sequel. There's more I could go into and I made the game sound a lot worse than it actually is but the reality is that I'm mincing my words in fear of spoiling people, so it might sound like I'm not complimenting the game enough. The reality is that it does have good qualities but I also don't feel like I'm at a position where I can collect my thoughts and judge the game's story based without having played the sequel, so I won't. It's pretty good though, if not paced strangely at times. It's also incredibly hard to take this game seriously when iykyk is the villain. I'm serious if you don't know shit about this game go play it right now and prepare to have the craziest whiplash ever
I'm not going to lie though that PSP version is probably better because the god awful fan translation for this game gave characters different during different points in the story and I could never tell who was who.. Aside from that, the music was alright. Just alright. Few stand out tracks but I’m not foaming out of the mouth for anything. The PSP soundtrack sounded better from what I heard, and I’m probably going to play the PSP version of Eternal Punishment after my exams.
If you played the PSP versions of Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment, WITHOUT SPOILING, what does the save transfer do? Is it important or can I just play EP on PSP without it
I emphasize the above because the contacting system is abhorrent and easily the worst part of this game. I think it worked fine enough in the first game even if it was easily abusable and barebones, but this is just needlessly grindy for absolutely no reason. How it works is each character has 4 unique contact options that you can use to talk to a demon, given that you have 5 characters throughout the game, it easily becomes overwhelming. Depending on the personality of the demon and contact you chose, you will elicit an angry, happy, eager, or scared reaction. The goal is to make them eager so that you can get their arcana’s spell cards, though if you make them happy before doing so, you will get free cards that can be converted into any arcana card type in the velvet room. You can only have 3 happy demons at any given time as the would-be “buff” stays constant throughout the game, unless you make them angry, which is very easy to do. On random occasions, including at the very start of a battle, a demon will start talking to you, except during these sequences you pretty much have to guess what the correct answer is because they ask you questions like “if you were an animal what would you be human dog demon” and on my life I picked every single possible option for multiple demons, and they were all fucking wrong so i think it’s bugged or something. While that’s annoying, I found the fusing system to be fun, assuming I had enough cards to make what I wanted to make. I like the emphasis on spell cards, but I would be lying if I said I preferred this over the modern fusion systems, even though the game is hardly balanced around them.
On the topic of balancing, it’s all over the place. I played the PS1 version which is harder than the PSP remaster according to everyone, and for a good portion of the game all I was doing was getting into random encounters, even boss fights, and just auto battling. To extend on that, the combat system is centered around auto battling. You set your characters moves and press start battle. You can stop the auto battle whenever you want and check the turn order of your party members so you can plan your attacks accordingly, but outside of the final boss I pretty much turned my brain off the entire time, save for a select few instances. I don’t like this system because more than any RPG I’ve ever played, I get little to no reward or satisfaction mainly because I’m not pressing buttons as often. While some might see that fact as a good thing, I see it as mundane and boring. I make it sound bad, but in reality it barely affected me and it’s not like the difficulty is completely nonexistent, it’s there I just found it incredibly easy and manipulable is all. That final boss is some bullshit though. Game goes from being easy for about 15 hours to being extremely tedious and hard for no reason? Boring as hell
THE RUMORS SUCK. The system is there to remind you that the story involves rumors, and it fucking sucks. I don’t like talking to rumor mongerors with the clunky ass text boxes that plague the entire game and just don’t skip properly just to hear that Bimble Fuck Joe is selling his Sweaty Ass Shirt for 3 yen cheaper. Same people who defend this shit are the people who say Drakengard is a masterpiece because the gameplay sucks on purpose or whatever. I’m heavily overblowing it and this was hardly an issue because i did it twice throughout the entire game but it just made me realize how much i hated the textboxes in this game. Going back to that demon happiness shit for a second, if you have 3 contracts (3 happy demons) then the demon you’re currently trying to contact will ask you to replace one of the contracts so that they can be added, and for some god awful reason the developers thought it would be funny to have the dialogue option to appear at the least opportune time so that almost every single time I press the A button to progress the dialogue, the options appear and I annul the wrong contract. Every. Fucking. Time. Even when i'm careful I still somehow fuck it up. Yes, I know, skill issues and many such cases. Shit was made to make me fall asleep im not even going to lie spread a rumor to make my bed more comfortable. Booking the luxury suite at the Innocent Inn™ if it doesn't become a reality (joke donated by @Zotol)
Now that I aired my grievances, I liked the characters! I think they’re easily some of the best and most realistic ones in the series. I loathe how the modern persona games have these uninteresting and almost repetitive characters that for the life of me I just can’t give a single fuck about half the time, and for the first time I actually found myself caring about the issues and problems these characters are facing. They may not be as realized or fleshed out in this game as I would have liked them to be, but they were nonetheless impactful, more so than half of the slop the modern games shoved down my throat and I’m sure they will be even more amazing in the sequel. There's more I could go into and I made the game sound a lot worse than it actually is but the reality is that I'm mincing my words in fear of spoiling people, so it might sound like I'm not complimenting the game enough. The reality is that it does have good qualities but I also don't feel like I'm at a position where I can collect my thoughts and judge the game's story based without having played the sequel, so I won't. It's pretty good though, if not paced strangely at times. It's also incredibly hard to take this game seriously when iykyk is the villain. I'm serious if you don't know shit about this game go play it right now and prepare to have the craziest whiplash ever
I'm not going to lie though that PSP version is probably better because the god awful fan translation for this game gave characters different during different points in the story and I could never tell who was who.. Aside from that, the music was alright. Just alright. Few stand out tracks but I’m not foaming out of the mouth for anything. The PSP soundtrack sounded better from what I heard, and I’m probably going to play the PSP version of Eternal Punishment after my exams.
If you played the PSP versions of Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment, WITHOUT SPOILING, what does the save transfer do? Is it important or can I just play EP on PSP without it
1995
Love the use of Amano’s art style and I wish final fantasy treated it with as much respect as this game and on a completely unrelated note did they just not teach Wanzer pilots how to aim in the military? More than half of my attacks missed throughout the course of the game… it’s really not even that serious but everytime it happened every ounce of dopamine disintegrated because the game relies on hitting random body parts with no way to guide shots unless your pilot learns a skill that allows them to do so, but that comes in play half way through the game and even then you get more XP if you destroy every body part, so I ended up not using it half the time. Front mission also has stats that increase depending on what weapon you’re attacking with. You know what other game did this? Final Fantasy 2. But you all let Projared brainwash you into thinking the level up system sucked. Shame on you.
Will forever be known to me as a game i played ONLY during every single one of my Jewish Studies lectures. Im not even Jewish so i cant begin to tell you how i ended up in that class but this was the only thing i looked forward doing at 10:55 - 11:30am tuesdays and thursdays every week. Today was my last day of class so it was either I beat the game today or i take another class about the Jewish religion. There was no better option.
Fun game though if not a little confusing at times which is why it took me so long to beat it, though the game does have hints which i used religiously because between learning about pangrea or whatever my professor was talking about and me not knowing the geography of Japan i couldnt hope to keep up... Then i would have had to take a second Jewish culture class. The zones are pretty open at times and normally i would find this to be boring but the music was very good so i didnt really care much... either that or i was just so bored that anything was entertaining. The tight corridor areas were extremely fucking annoying due to the god awful camera
This game also does that Final Fantasy V shit with the humor where they do an attempt at comedy and nobody laughs but instead of playing this it just plays a laugh track (<-- thats a laugh track in case any of you didnt know) and unfortunately im a sucker for shitty jokes so this appealed to me. I think beating this game was more of an accomplishment to me than completing the course
Fun game though if not a little confusing at times which is why it took me so long to beat it, though the game does have hints which i used religiously because between learning about pangrea or whatever my professor was talking about and me not knowing the geography of Japan i couldnt hope to keep up... Then i would have had to take a second Jewish culture class. The zones are pretty open at times and normally i would find this to be boring but the music was very good so i didnt really care much... either that or i was just so bored that anything was entertaining. The tight corridor areas were extremely fucking annoying due to the god awful camera
This game also does that Final Fantasy V shit with the humor where they do an attempt at comedy and nobody laughs but instead of playing this it just plays a laugh track (<-- thats a laugh track in case any of you didnt know) and unfortunately im a sucker for shitty jokes so this appealed to me. I think beating this game was more of an accomplishment to me than completing the course
This review contains spoilers
Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment spoilers ahead. Don't read if you have not completed both games
Although the relationship between this game and Innocent Sin is very well crafted and deeply interesting, I would be lying if it's poor execution wasn't to the games detriment. What I assume to be about 80% of the assets from the previous game, including music, dungeons and more carried over to this sequel. It's as uninspiring as it is boring, and it's extremely shocking to me that the game is praised for doing such. That being said, it is a very good story overall, even though it drags on at times.
Most of my gripes about IS were exorcised, primarily the tedious contact system being improved to not be as confusing and the game's characters being much more fleshed out throughout the story. I'll save myself the mental strain from reexplaining therefore thinking about the boring and half-assed auto combat system that didn't change at all in this game for some reason. I will say it's nice that they embraced it's boring design to the point where they added a turn list in the PSP version. Even in this game, I still found myself auto battling through pretty much every enemy and boss save for the final one and one other, a shocking reality considering that this is supposed to be the hardest Persona game according to fans, a game where the combat is revolved around auto battling is supposedly the hardest in the series. I even played on hard mode which I later learned does nothing but decrease SP gain when walking around in dungeons. The encounter rate is just as abhorrent as it was in IS, slightly mitigated by the fact that the game is a lot faster in this version.
Something I noticed in this game is that characters don't repeat themselves a lot. At first I was questioning why there wasn't as much dialogue in this game as a normal JRPG or better comparison Persona game and found it boring for a short while near the start, but ended up liking it a lot more with this realization. I'm happy the trope isn't present and it made the newer characters all the more realistic and likable by the end. On the topic of characters, it's a shame that the ones from IS were relegated to the status of "story piece" rather than actual developing character, because they were genuinely interesting near the end of their game. There was a lot more they could have done with them, but they chose not to because of the story? Strange decision, but as long as it continues the story I guess. As far as new characters go, the standouts are clearly Baofu and Katsuya. The dynamic between Katsuya being a police officer and abiding by the law and only the law while Baofu, a prosecutor turned criminal who and is much more vulgar in his methods, charred due to his past blames himself for his wife's death. When they first meet, they both despise each other and their methods but throughout the course of the game start to accept one another. Alongside being well written, it was very rewarding because after a story sequence, they were able to contact together in battle. It's a subtle but nice touch.
Continuing on the topic of characters, I found Ulala to be depthless and bland especially throughout the latter half of the game, though realistically she was hardly a problem. I just didn't resonate with her struggles I guess since I'm just so awesome and i have a lot of friends or whatever her back story was #CouldntBeMe. What is a problem is Maya because she is boring as fuck. Story implications aside, in IS I didn't really like her much and felt nothing when she died at the end of it, and her being a silent protagonist for some reason in this game didn't help that fact at all. Tatsuya also faces the same problems, but I ended up liking his character a lot more near the end because his problems, rather punishment, actually made sense in the end.
Loved that persona 1 shit though ill eat that up any day honestly that entire section with Nanjo was fucking awesome. Fucking love persona 1
Although the relationship between this game and Innocent Sin is very well crafted and deeply interesting, I would be lying if it's poor execution wasn't to the games detriment. What I assume to be about 80% of the assets from the previous game, including music, dungeons and more carried over to this sequel. It's as uninspiring as it is boring, and it's extremely shocking to me that the game is praised for doing such. That being said, it is a very good story overall, even though it drags on at times.
Most of my gripes about IS were exorcised, primarily the tedious contact system being improved to not be as confusing and the game's characters being much more fleshed out throughout the story. I'll save myself the mental strain from reexplaining therefore thinking about the boring and half-assed auto combat system that didn't change at all in this game for some reason. I will say it's nice that they embraced it's boring design to the point where they added a turn list in the PSP version. Even in this game, I still found myself auto battling through pretty much every enemy and boss save for the final one and one other, a shocking reality considering that this is supposed to be the hardest Persona game according to fans, a game where the combat is revolved around auto battling is supposedly the hardest in the series. I even played on hard mode which I later learned does nothing but decrease SP gain when walking around in dungeons. The encounter rate is just as abhorrent as it was in IS, slightly mitigated by the fact that the game is a lot faster in this version.
Something I noticed in this game is that characters don't repeat themselves a lot. At first I was questioning why there wasn't as much dialogue in this game as a normal JRPG or better comparison Persona game and found it boring for a short while near the start, but ended up liking it a lot more with this realization. I'm happy the trope isn't present and it made the newer characters all the more realistic and likable by the end. On the topic of characters, it's a shame that the ones from IS were relegated to the status of "story piece" rather than actual developing character, because they were genuinely interesting near the end of their game. There was a lot more they could have done with them, but they chose not to because of the story? Strange decision, but as long as it continues the story I guess. As far as new characters go, the standouts are clearly Baofu and Katsuya. The dynamic between Katsuya being a police officer and abiding by the law and only the law while Baofu, a prosecutor turned criminal who and is much more vulgar in his methods, charred due to his past blames himself for his wife's death. When they first meet, they both despise each other and their methods but throughout the course of the game start to accept one another. Alongside being well written, it was very rewarding because after a story sequence, they were able to contact together in battle. It's a subtle but nice touch.
Continuing on the topic of characters, I found Ulala to be depthless and bland especially throughout the latter half of the game, though realistically she was hardly a problem. I just didn't resonate with her struggles I guess since I'm just so awesome and i have a lot of friends or whatever her back story was #CouldntBeMe. What is a problem is Maya because she is boring as fuck. Story implications aside, in IS I didn't really like her much and felt nothing when she died at the end of it, and her being a silent protagonist for some reason in this game didn't help that fact at all. Tatsuya also faces the same problems, but I ended up liking his character a lot more near the end because his problems, rather punishment, actually made sense in the end.
Loved that persona 1 shit though ill eat that up any day honestly that entire section with Nanjo was fucking awesome. Fucking love persona 1
1999
Instead of dancing around the fact that this is a sequel to chrono trigger let’s embrace and define what made made it special to everyone because it's hard for me not to talk about it when comparing and contrasting. To someone who might not have played a lot of RPGs, pretty much everything about the game would stand out to them and realistically they wouldn't be able to realize what actually made it special because they haven't played the games that lead to it's creation, namely final fantasy and dragon quest. I'm not going to act like trigger had an incredible story or cast of characters, because it didn't. It was fine it had it's moments and it wasn't bad by any means but it was refined, a word I could use to define the entirety of the game. I'm also not going to act like a lot of what trigger did wasn't done before, because pretty much everything was done before and it's a common misconception and because of the lack of knowledge people have everyone acts like it's the best without actually realizing it, or at least that's the conclusion I came to.
It's important to look at chrono trigger as a meta-analysis for rpgs which sounds extremely fucking pretentious and trust me it is but it means combining the efforts and work of many others work and making it one big easily digestible whole for everyone to enjoy. I loathe yapping about trigger as much as i do like and respect it but i had to get it out of the way before i started talking about this gem
What confused me about chrono cross is that all i've ever heard about it is a bunch of 50/50 bullshit where people either love it or hate it. I'm sitting here playing this fucking game and all im experiencing is what made trigger special and then some. By that i mean the meta-analysis bullshit i mentioned except it expanded on it and made everything it did even better. I'm talking about the extremely minute shit like running from boss battles, something I wouldn't have even noticed until I accidentally pressed the button and feared that I wasted a turn, only to find out that it backed me out of the fight and pulled up the menu screen so I could reorganize my magic and heal. Normally I would say that this is making the game far too easy, but because the game doesn't have a conventional leveling system it forces you to learn the combat and utilize your tools. It doesn't want you to lose 2 hours of progress unless you're a dumb ass and forgot the option to run existed because you're burned from horribly designed 90s rpgs that work against you, it wants you to learn and have fun. That is true accessibility beyond yellow paint and map markers
I can understand why it's combat might not be for everyone, because it really is jarring at first and makes little to no sense but once you understand the system it fucking rocks. I ended up liking it just as much as triggers once more magic spots opened up on my characters. What I don't understand is why the fuck people hate this story. You guys actually fucking suck for telling me it was bad stop with the horrible follow up to chrono trigger brainwashing and take the updated media literacy test. The test is enjoying this game and the price of failing is your backloggd account which will get removed if you type the words "bad follow up to chrono trigger" in your review. I think if this game had the same art style as trigger there would have been no controversy or bad follow up bullshit to be heard and everyone would have loved this game just as much if not more
I'm separating this last part from my review because i think it's the most important part of the review but just so everyone knows Masato Kato, the story writer for trigger was handed the reins to the chrono series by it's original creators because he understood the intricacies of trigger, the fucking the composer Yasunori Mitsuda even considered him to be a director of trigger even though he wasn't. He didn't ruin the story he expanded on his own work. Not sure what the argument is there. That's not to say a follow up by original creators has to be all good and no error, but it truly is a great follow up for all of those reasons and more.
It's important to look at chrono trigger as a meta-analysis for rpgs which sounds extremely fucking pretentious and trust me it is but it means combining the efforts and work of many others work and making it one big easily digestible whole for everyone to enjoy. I loathe yapping about trigger as much as i do like and respect it but i had to get it out of the way before i started talking about this gem
What confused me about chrono cross is that all i've ever heard about it is a bunch of 50/50 bullshit where people either love it or hate it. I'm sitting here playing this fucking game and all im experiencing is what made trigger special and then some. By that i mean the meta-analysis bullshit i mentioned except it expanded on it and made everything it did even better. I'm talking about the extremely minute shit like running from boss battles, something I wouldn't have even noticed until I accidentally pressed the button and feared that I wasted a turn, only to find out that it backed me out of the fight and pulled up the menu screen so I could reorganize my magic and heal. Normally I would say that this is making the game far too easy, but because the game doesn't have a conventional leveling system it forces you to learn the combat and utilize your tools. It doesn't want you to lose 2 hours of progress unless you're a dumb ass and forgot the option to run existed because you're burned from horribly designed 90s rpgs that work against you, it wants you to learn and have fun. That is true accessibility beyond yellow paint and map markers
I can understand why it's combat might not be for everyone, because it really is jarring at first and makes little to no sense but once you understand the system it fucking rocks. I ended up liking it just as much as triggers once more magic spots opened up on my characters. What I don't understand is why the fuck people hate this story. You guys actually fucking suck for telling me it was bad stop with the horrible follow up to chrono trigger brainwashing and take the updated media literacy test. The test is enjoying this game and the price of failing is your backloggd account which will get removed if you type the words "bad follow up to chrono trigger" in your review. I think if this game had the same art style as trigger there would have been no controversy or bad follow up bullshit to be heard and everyone would have loved this game just as much if not more
I'm separating this last part from my review because i think it's the most important part of the review but just so everyone knows Masato Kato, the story writer for trigger was handed the reins to the chrono series by it's original creators because he understood the intricacies of trigger, the fucking the composer Yasunori Mitsuda even considered him to be a director of trigger even though he wasn't. He didn't ruin the story he expanded on his own work. Not sure what the argument is there. That's not to say a follow up by original creators has to be all good and no error, but it truly is a great follow up for all of those reasons and more.
Game got good when Lyse stopped yapping after the main story quests
The post game story was peak and it feels like for the first time in the entire game so far they finally locked in and cut out the fat that plagued the other expansions. Not to mention the amazing deltascape and ivalice alliance raids. Nothing will come close to listening to vagrant story music alongside 23 other people in this game
Really didnt think i would end up caring about any of the characters in stormbloods story leading up to the ending but they made the weak ones good and the good ones great. Can't wait to see what they did in shadowbringers
The post game story was peak and it feels like for the first time in the entire game so far they finally locked in and cut out the fat that plagued the other expansions. Not to mention the amazing deltascape and ivalice alliance raids. Nothing will come close to listening to vagrant story music alongside 23 other people in this game
Really didnt think i would end up caring about any of the characters in stormbloods story leading up to the ending but they made the weak ones good and the good ones great. Can't wait to see what they did in shadowbringers