I tried. I really tried playing this again. Even with the increased speed of the leveling with the new systems the leveling system just sucks ass. It really drains not having a tangible level and being able to figure out if I'm strong enough for the upcoming content or not. The story is a great improvement on 1 for sure, and while I like the idea of guest characters, I really would enjoying having a full party the whole game thanks. The dungeons are bland and feel like traps to make you walk into rooms with really really high encounter rates and there is no incentive to walk into them. The game just constantly makes itself out to be a chore.

So since I reviewed Persona 3 Portable, we might as well also look at the other Persona game that got a release on modern consoles recently. Persona 4 Golden was originally released in 2012 for the Playstation Vita where it was trapped until its steam release in 2021. Thankfully now the stream port (with some new small additions that have also been added to the steam port) is available on modern consoles!

I feel like a direct comparison between P3P and P4G is almost unfair. P3P was the cut down port while P4G was the spruced up extra version that Atlus loves releasing of Persona games. As Golden is the spruced up version of the original Persona 4, it is 100% the definitive Persona 4 experience. The new confidant that is required to open up the new dungeon id say is of controversial quality among the fandom. However, the additional content is welcome all the same.

Persona 4 in general is a great contrast to Persona 3 before it and even Persona 5 after it. Persona 4 is very colorful and cheery in tone. Some fans think that this lightness in tone clashes with its murder mystery plot somewhat. I am of the opinion that Persona 4’s plot doesn't really clash with the energy that the game gives off. The game's aesthetics, while not as strong as Persona 5’s, really makes you feel like you are in a television. Persona has done a great job through the most recent installments having there be a progression in aesthetics. Sometimes it isn't really fair to compare them between games, especially with the large gap in time between Persona 4 and Persona 5’s initial releases, but I feel like I would be doing readers a disservice by trying to ignore the comparison altogether.

One thing that really irks about Persona 4 with this re-release is the dungeons. While they are procedurally generated like persona 3’s Tartarus, the different zones give off the vibe that there should be a set map. Especially after Persona 5’s cinematic palaces being fixed, going back to Persona 4’s dungeons feel lacking and lifeless in a game where its energy is its biggest strength. At least in Persona 3, the tower’s layout changing every time you enter made logical game sense, the dungeon floors being randomly generated here is basically hand waived as what Persona players should expect. Overall, Persona 4 also has a bit of a smaller cast in comparison to Persona 3 and 5. This lends it a good balance of having a wide array of party members without feeling like your time with them is limited or not worth trying to complete (aka the Haru problem in Persona 5.)

Persona 4 overall still stands up on its own laurels. After the release of Persona 5 Royal, trying to not compare what Atlus has accomplished with its latest installment over Persona 4 is impossible. Persona 5’s gameplay improvements make Persona 4 feel a bit old and clunky in comparison. Taken by itself, Persona 4 Golden is still a great RPG and worth your time, especially on the Nintendo Switch and the ability to take it and play anywhere.

This review was cross posted from The Fig Tree website. You can read the original article here:
https://figleafgamingnetwork.wordpress.com/2023/03/24/persona-4-golden-review/

I’ve always kind of been in a weird spot with the Fire Emblem series. It’s a series I’ve pretty much always been interested in getting, but I have a hard time getting to a point where I can consistently finish them. I purchased Fire Emblem for the GBA back in the day but never finished it. I did eventually finish Sacred Stones. Then I bought (and after a loooong delay) finished Awakening. I got Fates but never finished it and then the same with Three Houses.

Fire Emblem Engage provides the player with tools to mitigate the things that have provided me with decision anxiety regarding the series games in the past.

Fire Emblem Engage was released in January of 2023 with also 4 DLC waves that were released in relative quick succession with the last one being released the first week of April. At first I was weary about picking this game up: I never ended up getting through even half of one story route of Three Houses so I was concerned that the same would end up happening with this game. Needless to say, I was able to get through and beat Engage.

From beating the game on normal, it definitely feels like the default difficulty for this game is supposed to be hard, I felt myself cruising through the game without much hardship save for the DLC campaign chapters for Fell Xenologue. However easy the normal mode felt, Engage came with some QOL improvements that made my time with the game less stressful and prone to decision anxiety.

The Engage mechanic is the flagship mechanic of this game and its a wonderful system that adds a layer of strategy to each fight. Each Engage lasts 3 turns (with some skills or bond levels raising the number of turns a unit can stay engaged for) and for each Engage, the unit gets a special attack that can pretty much erase a unit off the battlefield. Your opponents frequently also have access to this power which leads to some crafty strategies needing to be formed to kill some units (especially bosses). The gameplay of this new system is spectacular,

I particularly am not a fan of how most Fire Emblem games have weapon degradation, so them doing away with it for Engage is always a welcome change in my eyes. The characters are also great. Most of the dialogue is that anime level of cringe sometimes where you can’t believe that this is the script that made it through production.

The character designs and some dialogue is charming, and I like the characters’ personalities. However the overarching story is complete nonsense. To be honest, I know not many people go to Fire Emblem for the story so this is not really any kind of a dealbreaker for me in any way, it’s just the typical Fire Emblem nonsense plot people expect. I just feel like this installment has an extra level of nonsense with its clearly “More of a Mary Sue then ever” main character, which the series constantly feels like it’s trying to one up itself with.


Overall Engage is a fun game and the DLC also provides enough content with all of the waves out for it to be a worthwhile and enjoyable Strategy RPG experience even for those who are not masters of the series.

This review is cross posted from The Fig Tree website. You can find the original article here:
https://figleafgamingnetwork.wordpress.com/2023/04/17/fire-emblem-engage-review/

I got into the Yakuza (Now called Like a Dragon in the west to get in line with its Japanese name) in late 2021 after a friend of mine was going through the series and kept raving about how good the games were. After I saw Yakuza 0, Kiwami, and Kiwami 2 on sale for 5 dollars each digitally I decided that was the best point that I could do so. 

9 months and 8 games later I have been through the entire series and there is nothing quite like the Like a Dragon series. It's both a serious crime drama and super goofy at the same time and I totally love it for what it is. After the series’ huge success with Yakuza: Like a Dragon in 2020, RGG studio has started to look back and see what else they can give the west that we haven't gotten in the past. The first of these was the period drama Ishin. Ishin originally released on the PS3 back in 2014 and finally got its worldwide release with Like a Dragon: Ishin! Last month. 

Ishin’s sensibilities as far as its gameplay are very clear. RGG’s games almost play like rings on a tree, as the games get newer and newer you can see where new ideas were implemented and experimented with. Ishin’s original Japan only release was in between Yakuza 5 and Yakuza 0 and even this remake feels like it. Ishin retains some of Yakuza 5’s clunkiness with some improvements that we later saw in Yakuza 0, such as the multiple fighting stances. In Ishin, these stances are sword, sword with gun (called wild rose), gun, or brawler. Especially in boss fights, the brawler style feels almost totally useless. The other styles with weapons just feel better to control and do more damage than the brawler style. The gunman style also feels fairly broken against normal enemies, it takes little effort to stun lock single enemies with the pistol by itself. The Wild Rose and Swordsman styles are the styles that I like to use and feel the most balanced. The game encourages you to use the Swordsman style against single enemies and Wild Rose against groups. I found most situations without bosses, Wild Rose was the best style to use, with Swordsman being a good style to use if I wanted the ability to block over being able to attack all foes around me.
There are a couple of small complaints I have regarding the combat. The main two issues I have are that groups of gun wielding enemies hit detection occasionally were able to hit me through objects, which lead to some frustrating deaths. The second are the quick time events. This is more of a general complaint that I have had for most of the games than anything, especially for first time players, the quick time events come up far too quickly and give you too little time to properly react. It was about a 50/50 split of when I was able to and when I was not able to hit QTEs when the game required them during boss fights. 

It feels almost dismissive to call the plot standard Like A Dragon faire, but I’m not sure how else to describe it. There is murder, betrayal, twist and turns and all of that. Not to say in any way that the plot is bad, Ishin’s plot is still compelling throughout as both a murder mystery and a crime drama. There is just a bit more confusion with names this time around, especially with multiple people in the plot also having aliases, and on top of that having the faces of Yakuza characters, whose names from the Yakuza games I already have a hard time keeping track of.

Overall the game is pretty good! I'm hopeful that Ishin does well so that other Like A Dragon spin offs will be able to get worldwide releases in the future!

Review was cross posted from: https://t.co/RhCmePTwnJ

At this point I consider myself a fairly avid Persona fan. Back in 2014 my friend told me about this great game Persona 3 FES and said I should buy and play it. After downloading it on my PS3 and giving it a shot, I had my gripes with it when I started out. By the time I was finished with it, I was completely hooked. I had previously dabbled in the SMT series in the PS2 era with such cult classics as SMT 3 Nocturne and Digital Devil Saga but up to that point I had somehow completely dodged the Persona subseries entirely. After playing and finishing Persona 3 I jumped right into trying to acquire a copy of Persona 4 Golden. The rest from there is history. Now after 3 full runs of each game under my belt, Atlus comes out with ports of Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden to modern consoles (finally)

Persona 3 Portable is the version of Persona 3 that I was least familiar with before this release. I did purchase P3P on the PS Vita store via the PSTV but I never got around to playing it. Having it available on the switch definitely opens up a whole new world. The decision to port Portable rather than the FES version of the game is a bit of a perplexing decision that has been discussed a lot since the announcement of the port.
Portable is the more recent port of the game and its QOL features over FES are noticeable and very helpful. Part of the appeal of the FES version of the game was just having control over your playable character during battles. In portable just like Golden, you have the option to take direct control over your party members. You have the option to still let the AI control them, but it allows more precision and less overall frustration by assuming direct control. You also can return to the top floor you have explored rather than just relying on checkpoints which is one of P3P’s best features over FES. P3P does not include the additional scenario “The Answer” which was included in the FES port, but is generally considered to be a weak additional campaign, which is all dungeon crawling with some essential features such as the persona compendium ripped out to make it artificially more difficult.
The graphics are slightly up-rezzed from the PSP version of the game, but saying the models look a little rough is an understatement. This is my biggest issue with them choosing this version over the FES version of the game. At least P4 Golden, having been a Vita game, has fairly decent graphics and doesn't look too terribly rough even in its native resolution. Portable having come from the PSP does not have that luxury. The models look like late PS1 era models that have been upscaled to have HD textures. While it looks fine, it would have looked better to just remake the models. Almost calling this port a remaster feels insulting with how little effort that appears to have been taken with the graphics.
As usual with most Atlus games, the gameplay is as stellar as usual with no big changes from the PSP version of the game. The game acts more like a visual novel rather then an open world when you are outside of Tartrus. This worked well on the psp due to limitations of the console, but just feels cheap on current hardware.
Overall the game is still excellent, just graphically could have used a better facelift then the AI overhaul that Atlus went for. The gameplay is still fantastic and I say that this game is still worth the pickup regardless of your experience with Persona 3 before this release.

This review was cross posted from: https://figleafgamingnetwork.wordpress.com/2023/02/24/persona-3-portable-switch-review/