Victikirby15
2021
It's easy to keep your eyes moist when you're crying so much
As someone who went into this knowing only about the... questionable aspects of this game thanks to Twitter, I was pleasantly surprised to find there was an actual video game here.
Since The Coffin of Andy and Leyley (TCOAAL) is still in early access, it's obviously not going to be content complete, but there's still some meat on its bones, figuratively and literally. TCOAAL's main positive is the visuals, which are really good all around. Character designs are cute without drawing you out of the creepy atmosphere. The characters themselves aren't half bad either, particularly the two leads of Andrew and Ashley. Both are clearly messed up in different ways, but the game never tries to portray them as good people, just clearly damaged people dealing with extreme circumstances in often extreme ways.
That being said, due to the game only having two chapters out as of the time of me writing this review, the story is a bit lacking. The whole demon aspect of the plot feels unexplored, and there's some loose threads present that feel very arbitrary at the present moment. Lots of the game also feels very railroaded, which I guess is to be expected with a more visual novel style of story telling, but from an RPG Maker adventure game I expected a bit more in terms of exploration. As for the elephant in the room, the incest is a looming presence in the game, but isn't as big of a factor as you've probably been lead to believe. There's only one scene that actually implies anything explicit, and it's an optional scene that the game warns you about beforehand. It's definitely not preferable, but not something that soured the whole pot for me, at least. Overall, I enjoyed the game enough, but I'd say to wait until the full release to give it a try.
Since The Coffin of Andy and Leyley (TCOAAL) is still in early access, it's obviously not going to be content complete, but there's still some meat on its bones, figuratively and literally. TCOAAL's main positive is the visuals, which are really good all around. Character designs are cute without drawing you out of the creepy atmosphere. The characters themselves aren't half bad either, particularly the two leads of Andrew and Ashley. Both are clearly messed up in different ways, but the game never tries to portray them as good people, just clearly damaged people dealing with extreme circumstances in often extreme ways.
That being said, due to the game only having two chapters out as of the time of me writing this review, the story is a bit lacking. The whole demon aspect of the plot feels unexplored, and there's some loose threads present that feel very arbitrary at the present moment. Lots of the game also feels very railroaded, which I guess is to be expected with a more visual novel style of story telling, but from an RPG Maker adventure game I expected a bit more in terms of exploration. As for the elephant in the room, the incest is a looming presence in the game, but isn't as big of a factor as you've probably been lead to believe. There's only one scene that actually implies anything explicit, and it's an optional scene that the game warns you about beforehand. It's definitely not preferable, but not something that soured the whole pot for me, at least. Overall, I enjoyed the game enough, but I'd say to wait until the full release to give it a try.
Not as good as the first one but Tama is hot and Ryuki is my little meow-meow.
I hope you weren't expecting to play as Gunvolt in this Gunvolt game.
2012
Persona was a series that I had heard many good things about, and one that had been recommended to me numerous times by friends. So, I recently played through Persona 4 Golden on Steam for the first time. And playing this game with a fresh view in 2022 definitely makes some of its flaws more apparent. I have a lot to say about this game, and as this was my first experience playing a Persona game, I hope this can help others who may want to check the series out.
The short version of my thoughts is that Persona 4 is a good game, but a dated one. Some of the gameplay systems are obtuse, the difficulty can be inconsistent, and a few of the writing decisions made would be straight up unacceptable in today's climate. Despite that, the main plot of the game is very well done, most of the characters are very well written, and the whole setting has a certain charm to it that makes the game feel very homely. I would recommend the game on those points alone, with the caveat that some of the writing gets a little uncomfortable.
To expand on my points a bit more, I feel like this game focuses more on being a social sim than an RPG. That's perfectly fine if you're going into the game with that in mind, but it leaves the combat feeling lacking at times. Combat is very standard turn based fair, and while that isn't necessarily a bad thing, I wouldn't call Persona 4 the greatest example of how to do turn based combat. This is a game that expects you to grind, and how much you choose to do so will greatly affect your experience. Doing battles is how you get new skills, new Personas, materials to make new equipment, as well as the obvious money and EXP. This creates a very tricky balance, where grinding too little makes fights a slog to get through, but grinding too much results in your characters becoming so powerful that fights become inconsequential, with no real good middle ground. Perhaps to account for how overpowered you can become, many of the bosses in this game have massive HP pools that make them take forever to defeat. Very few of them require actually complex strategies (most of them are just: use their elemental weakness, guard before they do their big attack, and heal when necessary), but they can still take an ungodly long amount of time to defeat. The bosses will also occasionally jump in difficulty as well. The boss of the fourth main dungeon was a massive pain to get through, with abilities that just made it more annoying than fun to fight. P4 Golden does have features to help alleviate some of these problems, such as a freely adjustable difficulty, and even a handy "battle retry" option, which I HIGHLY recommend to first time players, or people who just want to enjoy the story without struggling through some of the more difficult fights.
My biggest issue with this game is the writing. 80 percent of the time, it's great. Each of the characters have their own personality and charm, helped out by some fantastic voice acting, and it really helps reinforce the idea that you're playing as a group of high schoolers. Even the characters who aren't part of your main party get plenty of time to shine, with Dojima, Nanako, and the game's charismatic twist villain being some standouts for me.
My gripe comes with the other 20 percent of the writing. A big theme in Persona 4 is "identity", with many of the characters struggling to discover who they are or what they want to do in life. The game decides to take this opportunity to tackle some more complex issues, namely sexuality and gender identity. I guess it's praiseworthy that the game even tries to discuss stuff like this, but its attempts are clumsy at best and straight up offensive at worst. One character that you recruit pretty early on is heavily implied to be gay, which wouldn't be a problem, except that the game treats this like a "problem" that needs "solving", with many jokes being made at his expense, and several of the main characters making homophobic comments towards him. Another character that you meet later is struggling with their gender identity. Instead of being supportive and helping them figure it out, the main cast just brushes them off, basically saying "No, you don't want to become a man! Stop talking crazy." That's not to even mention scenes like the campout or the drag show that just had me cringing the entire time. Given that this is a JRPG that originally released in 2008, I suppose I can let some of this slide, but it was honestly appalling to me how much borderline offensive material was in this game, especially after I had heard it praised so highly.
Now, despite everything that I've said, I would still recommend Persona 4 Golden. That good 80 percent of the writing is fantastic, with the mood being able to bounce between cozy, creepy, silly, and tense when necessary. Doing the social links for all of the main characters and watching them grow is super rewarding, both in the fact that their characters develop and that you get actual combat bonuses for it, too. The combat, while nothing special, still does its job just fine, and discovering new Personas to use was always exciting. The ending is also really good, leaving you with a nice, bittersweet feeling after the journey ends. (To note: I only got the true ending in my playthrough, not the bonus "golden ending"). If anything, playing this game just made me want to go and try the other games in the series, to see how they differ and/or improve on this one.
TL;DR: Good game, only slightly homophobic.
The short version of my thoughts is that Persona 4 is a good game, but a dated one. Some of the gameplay systems are obtuse, the difficulty can be inconsistent, and a few of the writing decisions made would be straight up unacceptable in today's climate. Despite that, the main plot of the game is very well done, most of the characters are very well written, and the whole setting has a certain charm to it that makes the game feel very homely. I would recommend the game on those points alone, with the caveat that some of the writing gets a little uncomfortable.
To expand on my points a bit more, I feel like this game focuses more on being a social sim than an RPG. That's perfectly fine if you're going into the game with that in mind, but it leaves the combat feeling lacking at times. Combat is very standard turn based fair, and while that isn't necessarily a bad thing, I wouldn't call Persona 4 the greatest example of how to do turn based combat. This is a game that expects you to grind, and how much you choose to do so will greatly affect your experience. Doing battles is how you get new skills, new Personas, materials to make new equipment, as well as the obvious money and EXP. This creates a very tricky balance, where grinding too little makes fights a slog to get through, but grinding too much results in your characters becoming so powerful that fights become inconsequential, with no real good middle ground. Perhaps to account for how overpowered you can become, many of the bosses in this game have massive HP pools that make them take forever to defeat. Very few of them require actually complex strategies (most of them are just: use their elemental weakness, guard before they do their big attack, and heal when necessary), but they can still take an ungodly long amount of time to defeat. The bosses will also occasionally jump in difficulty as well. The boss of the fourth main dungeon was a massive pain to get through, with abilities that just made it more annoying than fun to fight. P4 Golden does have features to help alleviate some of these problems, such as a freely adjustable difficulty, and even a handy "battle retry" option, which I HIGHLY recommend to first time players, or people who just want to enjoy the story without struggling through some of the more difficult fights.
My biggest issue with this game is the writing. 80 percent of the time, it's great. Each of the characters have their own personality and charm, helped out by some fantastic voice acting, and it really helps reinforce the idea that you're playing as a group of high schoolers. Even the characters who aren't part of your main party get plenty of time to shine, with Dojima, Nanako, and the game's charismatic twist villain being some standouts for me.
My gripe comes with the other 20 percent of the writing. A big theme in Persona 4 is "identity", with many of the characters struggling to discover who they are or what they want to do in life. The game decides to take this opportunity to tackle some more complex issues, namely sexuality and gender identity. I guess it's praiseworthy that the game even tries to discuss stuff like this, but its attempts are clumsy at best and straight up offensive at worst. One character that you recruit pretty early on is heavily implied to be gay, which wouldn't be a problem, except that the game treats this like a "problem" that needs "solving", with many jokes being made at his expense, and several of the main characters making homophobic comments towards him. Another character that you meet later is struggling with their gender identity. Instead of being supportive and helping them figure it out, the main cast just brushes them off, basically saying "No, you don't want to become a man! Stop talking crazy." That's not to even mention scenes like the campout or the drag show that just had me cringing the entire time. Given that this is a JRPG that originally released in 2008, I suppose I can let some of this slide, but it was honestly appalling to me how much borderline offensive material was in this game, especially after I had heard it praised so highly.
Now, despite everything that I've said, I would still recommend Persona 4 Golden. That good 80 percent of the writing is fantastic, with the mood being able to bounce between cozy, creepy, silly, and tense when necessary. Doing the social links for all of the main characters and watching them grow is super rewarding, both in the fact that their characters develop and that you get actual combat bonuses for it, too. The combat, while nothing special, still does its job just fine, and discovering new Personas to use was always exciting. The ending is also really good, leaving you with a nice, bittersweet feeling after the journey ends. (To note: I only got the true ending in my playthrough, not the bonus "golden ending"). If anything, playing this game just made me want to go and try the other games in the series, to see how they differ and/or improve on this one.
TL;DR: Good game, only slightly homophobic.