I mean, I just spent 1h shooting the training drone into the sky to chill music and it was glorious, so I'll be happy if this is the best this game can get

I really love the fact I can just boot this up and hang out in some of the places I used to go all the time when I lived in Tokyo. I only played this after moving out of there, but the overlap of places depicted here and places I would go to do stuff is huge, which is a real blessing when I want to reminisce. I used to live really close to Inokashira Koen and I would go there all the time to take pictures, my workplace was in Shibuya and would stroll around after work until dinnertime, there was this brazilian ramen joint I loved in Sancha, along with tons of record shops... When I saw Kichijoji for the first time in this game I just spent 1h just hanging out.

Anyway, just immaculate presentation. Although is not the best Persona game, it's still the most replayable one by a long mile because of that - it's like like a luxurious hotel package where everything is taken care for you and you just have to sit back and enjoy it without any care in the world. The menus, the UI snappiness, the music, everything comes together and makes this one of the best hangout games ever.

Played it on the hardest difficulty setting this time around, which is still fairly easy compared to other SMT titles, particularly the ones for the DS. Also played in japanese, which is something I should really start doing every time I replay japanese titles, it's great practice

I feel like this game should tick all the boxes for me - fast paced precision platformer where you can get creative with combat and frame perfect execution sounds like heaven to me.

Unfortunately, more often than not the satisfaction I expected was frustration instead. I really like the speed and the physics here (except for the grappling hook which is way too slow when compared to the other things), but the level design didn't really take advantage of it and I never really understood if I was going through it correctly. Although there are tons of secrets, I rarely bothered to go after them, never felt compelled to explore.

Double jump is essential and is just taking up a slot, although I understand the appeal of trying to beat the game without it. Damage on contact makes sense in this type of game, but I still don't like it here, especially in such a fast paced game. It makes enemies way more boring - without it, they could have a more varied move set.

Still, when everything clicks and you are chaining kills on top combos and throwing bad guys at each other the game is one of the best in its genre, I just wish that that happened more often. Maybe I just need to git good™, but the game never really bothered to teach me how and it's not that fun to figure it out on your own.

I really wanted to love this, and I truly did the first 4h or so. Part of that was that the mechanics clicked together perfectly and the introduction to the world was truly interesting, even though the prose is nothing to write home about. After those 4h I was already thinking about how I would shape my next playthrough. Well, I didn't need to do that, since the game becomes so easy after you upgrade 4 or 5 times that you can pretty much achieve anything you want during your first playthrough.

It's a shame those mechanics fell apart about midway through my run. The further you advance in the story, the storylines, the daily actions you take and how they relate to the themes of the game grow further apart, making the actions feel empty and what started as a tense resource management game became a boring (but kinda cozy) slog.

Anyway, the exploration of it's main themes is pretty on the nose, which is fine (it is also very on the nose in Disco Elysium, since everyone is comparing these too), but here it's so much more shallow. If it wasn't, I don't think I would have minded the cozyness, it would be a great reward, even.

The game needed more work on ironing out these things, because the foundation is pretty good. Hope the sequel learns from these mistakes, although I don't think it will since the game was pretty universally aclaimed.

Too much to say about this one, really, which usually means that it will end up becoming one of my favorite things ever a couple of years from now.

All the style it has - and if there is something that nobody can deny is that this game has style - serves its themes perfectly.

Like a slow cinema police procedural, the amount of thematical twists this manages to pull off is astonishing, particularly when you consider the "gameplay" and how it lulls you a certain flow, giving you agency as quickly as it takes it away from you. You can row, but there's only a single path that river can take.

Masahi Ooka is a genius from writing something so well structured as Placebo.

Now to dust off the trusty DSi with my R4 card to finally understand what the fuck was going on 13 years ago when I triedplaying Flower, Sun and Rain and turned if off after 1 hour.

keep talking and nobody explodes, but better

after about 10 years, I finally beat this on hard mode.
probably not my fav touhou game, but it definitely has the best sound track

I hate this so much but I respect it even more, gg

Played through this twice! Not the best story in the series (I prefer Eternal Punishment and P4), but it does make P3 seem very dated, the presentation on this is on a whole other level
Played the japanese version for NG+, and while if was hard to follow at times, it was definitely good practice

very fun and very chill, until it isn't anymore.
some challenges are dumb, but the gameplay always feels good. Best part of the game may be the soundtrack, which is always on point and the masterful sound design that elevate the game to a higher level. pretty good writing too

playing it to improve my japanese along with flash cards

You know that feeling you got when you play your first Sonic game and start going really fast? This actually does it successfully.

coziest yearly playthrough

might be a 5/5, just need to get 5 remaining gifts and red medals on all levels.

speedrunning white's heaven rush looks amazing

As with every other Megaten, the gameplay is amazing and addictive, and fusing the demons to craft your perfect team is always going to be fun.
The art direction is nice, but the remaster didn't really improve on it, the PS2 version looks as good (or better) as this.
Now, for the story I'm going against the grain here and say the story is the weakest part of this game - no compelling characters, the world feels empty (by design, but it still could be way more interesting) and to top it off the dialog and the "reasons" are such a load of cheap philosophy that I can't take it seriously nor have time for it, so I probably won't replay this again to get the other endings.