sahinzbohi
1 review liked by sahinzbohi
I'm still recovering from the end but I think that this might be my favourite in the series. Just full of passion on the part of everyone who made it, from the new game system through the ridiculous amount of fan service in side quests, story and assistants, all the way to the emotion of Kazuhiro Nakaya's performance as Kasuga.
Yokohama's a huge map with multiple sections and I didn't even reach the top edge of it once til I was about 30 hours in. It's wonderfully rendered, full of life but not too foreboding to cross because of the new fast travel system. That's the only thing I think can definitely be changed for the next one though as it takes a few too many button presses, both to activate taxi ranks and to get to the taxi app on your phone.
The battle system's been controversially received but for a first effort it's incredibly well put together, and full of RGG flavour. Characters grab and kick items to do more damage and the pace is actually pretty good. At first it seems a bit slow but when you realise you can set up your favourite moves to the dpad it speeds up a lot. By the end you're just constantly firing off brutal Heat moves and cleaning up late game mobs which would take a fair while in earlier games in seconds. Boss battles do miss the special QTE animations but the actual fights end up becoming a solid challenge, and you do have to prepare properly for fights by the end of the game.
Finally, the story and characters are as good as any of the previous games. It helps that Kasuga is a much more outgoing personality than Kiryu, and his weird self-delusion that he's the hero of a classic JRPG (which is remarked upon early on!) makes for some amazing speeches as you go through the game. His merry band of straight men (and women) are all great too, and all have their moments. The story builds up to as great climax and the ending's really terrific.
In the end, this is kind of what Persona would have been if all the characters were 20 years older. It swaps between reality and hyper-reality multiple times a minute while still being grounded in the story of a group of people just trying to do what they can in a bad situation. I definitely want some more of this, but first I'm ready for the return of Judge Eyes!
Yokohama's a huge map with multiple sections and I didn't even reach the top edge of it once til I was about 30 hours in. It's wonderfully rendered, full of life but not too foreboding to cross because of the new fast travel system. That's the only thing I think can definitely be changed for the next one though as it takes a few too many button presses, both to activate taxi ranks and to get to the taxi app on your phone.
The battle system's been controversially received but for a first effort it's incredibly well put together, and full of RGG flavour. Characters grab and kick items to do more damage and the pace is actually pretty good. At first it seems a bit slow but when you realise you can set up your favourite moves to the dpad it speeds up a lot. By the end you're just constantly firing off brutal Heat moves and cleaning up late game mobs which would take a fair while in earlier games in seconds. Boss battles do miss the special QTE animations but the actual fights end up becoming a solid challenge, and you do have to prepare properly for fights by the end of the game.
Finally, the story and characters are as good as any of the previous games. It helps that Kasuga is a much more outgoing personality than Kiryu, and his weird self-delusion that he's the hero of a classic JRPG (which is remarked upon early on!) makes for some amazing speeches as you go through the game. His merry band of straight men (and women) are all great too, and all have their moments. The story builds up to as great climax and the ending's really terrific.
In the end, this is kind of what Persona would have been if all the characters were 20 years older. It swaps between reality and hyper-reality multiple times a minute while still being grounded in the story of a group of people just trying to do what they can in a bad situation. I definitely want some more of this, but first I'm ready for the return of Judge Eyes!