Thursday, Jun 25, 2009
Completion Stats:
Level: 80
Completion: 84 hours
Money: Over 8,000,000 yen
Compendium: 55% complete
Social Links: 17 of 22 maxed
The Journey
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: great game. Actually, I don't know what adjective to use. It's one of those game review cliches, what synonym for "good" to use. Fantastic? Outstanding? Spectacular? It's certainly a 5-star game, and a 9/10 on that scale. But we don't need to get into numbers.
Besides the fact that P3 sits very clearly inside it's sequel's shadow, my main problem with the game was the amount of combat, and the somewhat uninspired nature of the combat. I don't really know what I want out of my randomly-generated hallways, other than for them to maybe be not randomly-generated, and to maybe have some design to them.
(spoilers now for The Journey of Persona 3)
The team I used to clear Nyx was Aigis, Ken, and Mitsuru. A slightly non-standard party, to be sure, but I wanted a weird group. I like Ken more than Yukari, so I picked him as my main healer. And, as much as I hate Mitsuru's battle dialogue (and, well, her mannerisms in general), she was probably the best choice for nuker.
To get everyone's skills required me spending extra time leveling, until my whole party was in the high-70's. It's not like me to overpower content in RPGs, but I ended up doing it on accident, as the final boss caused me little to no trouble. And I was so prepared! I burned through all my gems to stock up on Sutras, Balms of Life, and Homonoculii (?!), most of which wern't needed.
The ending was satisfactory, even if the Bad Ending and the Good Ending share that initial dialogue exchange. I was afraid everybody was going to forget what had happened! But, luckily, Mitsuru remembered her past just in time to leap in slow-motion off the school auditorium's stage and make a dramatic exit with the other members of SEES.
Seeing Hugo (my character) cozied up with the robot was disconcerting to the say the least, but then again, you just look at Hugo, and you know he would be the type to fall asleep in the lap of a female android that's totally falling for him. He's just chill about it.
The Answer
(After my first night playing the Persona 3's epilogue, my thoughts on it spilled into a jumbled mess of words, replicated below. After that you can find some slightly more sound writing, although I've only played the game another hour and a half since. Spoilers in this, obviously.)
Maybe it's because he was near death. I'm not sure if you know your character is dead at the end of the main game or the start of the epilogue. In any case, I'll keep that tidbit of information down here. I was spoiled anyway by a review of P3:FES, not that I cared that much. (I have little issue with being spoiled in games)
That was last night, and tonight I started up The Answer, the epilogue to Persona 3 added in the FES re-release. (in case, you know, you haven't played P3 and are reading this anyway) I was just excited to be watching more of this story unfold; granted, P3's story wasn't that interesting, at least to me. It at least went beyond "we need to destroy the ambiguous evil in the world."
Plus, because The Answer is purportedly a 30-hour game, I figured maybe it would be more heavy on story and not follow the exact gameplay patterns of Persona 3. Hey, I might be wrong already!
Within 30 minutes you're set loose to go fight. I form my party, descend into the Abyss of Time, open the first door, and what do I find? More winding hallways filled with monsters! Huzzah! I cleared one floor and quit, my hopes for this epilogue a little dampered*.
I'm sure it will be a good time, but seeing the amount of assets recycled was a little disappointing. Everyone's wearing the same clothes (except Aigis, who's new robo-gear freaks me out), the battle dialogue is all the same, and the gameplay seems to be the same. Heck, I'll be fusing Personas in the Velvet Room like always! Maybe I was expecting too much, but I thought at least they would have thought up something cool for the combat, other than "it's harder," as explained to me before starting the game.
The Answer seems to be a new story wrapped around the same game, which I probably should have been expecting. Maybe something changes; after all, I never reached that second floor behind the first door. It's possible that everything changes there.
I probably just wasn't in the mood tonight. Oh, and hearing "I need your help!" every few seconds is sure to be tons of fun. At least they recorded her saying the names of all 170 Personas. Isn't that something.
* While a "damper" can be put on something, the act of putting said damper on something can not be referred to as "dampering." I used the word regardless.
Updated impressions
Mitsuru pointed out that the dungeon hub that is the Desert of Doors is "exactly like Tartarus." Everyone is expressing their exhaustion at having to fight again. Frankly, I feel the same way.
Maybe I was expecting to much out of this game; I just figured The Answer would be more about the story and would give you some new gameplay mechanics and a new way to look at the game. Ultimately, being a condensed experience, this isn't the same Persona. There are more dungeons to burn through, more characters to interact with, but there's no Social Linking, and the fusion system feels gimped to me.
Part of my problem with The Answer is probably a larger issue, dealing with the nature of dungeon-crawling in general. RPG dungeons, especially this game's, feel very detached from the story itself. You don't even get Persona 4's clever, thematic dungeons; these are just a jumble of hallways, baddies, and chests, the only difference between each block of Tartarus being the walls and the Shadows.
In theory, SEES was "unlocking" the "mysteries" of the tower, but there's actually a very simple explanation for its exsistence: it's a big podium on which Nyx will stand when she needs to bring about the end of the world.
Really, if the crux of Persona 3's story was supposed to be Tartarus, and Shadows, and Nyx, and The Fall, then whatever that story was, I didn't care that much. At the start of the game, I was worried that P3's plot would be nothing more than "bad things pose a vague threat to all mankind." At some point, the story did go in a few directions, with the relationships between characters being the more interesting things to me.
The marriage of gameplay and story has evolved over the years. Games still have cutscenes, but there's the growing crowd of indie forward-thinking-types who want to do away with cutscenes and go for the Half-Life method of all scripted events. I like the Valve approach, but I'm not entirely against cutscenes; I mean, I'm playing a Japanese RPG. This is nothing but riding the rails and seeing what happens.
I really don't know what can be done to dungeon-crawling to better meld it into a game's world; I just know that P3 is, in my mind, a bad example of dungeon-crawling. The concept is terrifying in and of itself, and is reminiscent of old-school trends: one, big dungeon, with over 250 near-identical floors. Barely anything story-driven happens here, at least while you're leveling.
As Jeff Gerstmann once put it, "this is why I don't make games, because I don't really know what they should be doing." There are a lot of creative people out there, but maybe the JRPG scene isn't the most creative. Atlas at least seems a bit more foreward-thinking; the high school-sim/dungeon-crawling genre is something all their own, but even something as interesting and fresh as Persona is steeped in the traditions of old, good and bad.
Is my wish unrealistic? I don't know. All I know is Persona 3's approach to dungeon design is not something I'm in favor of. There are most definetly better ways to do it. That, along with the fact that there's no Social Linking, will probably make for a more bland Persona experience. At this point, the only carrot stringing me along is 10-20 minutes of dialogue between finishing blocks.
As I say at the end of most impressions, "we'll see." We'll see if The Answer can be more than a tedious revisiting of the Press Turn system. I think I'll try and finish it regardless. I was playing some this morning, even. The enemy was casting Ice, so I switched to a Persona immune to ice. Then it cast wind instead, which I was weak to, and I died. Fantastic!
Level: 80
Completion: 84 hours
Money: Over 8,000,000 yen
Compendium: 55% complete
Social Links: 17 of 22 maxed
The Journey
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: great game. Actually, I don't know what adjective to use. It's one of those game review cliches, what synonym for "good" to use. Fantastic? Outstanding? Spectacular? It's certainly a 5-star game, and a 9/10 on that scale. But we don't need to get into numbers.
Besides the fact that P3 sits very clearly inside it's sequel's shadow, my main problem with the game was the amount of combat, and the somewhat uninspired nature of the combat. I don't really know what I want out of my randomly-generated hallways, other than for them to maybe be not randomly-generated, and to maybe have some design to them.
(spoilers now for The Journey of Persona 3)
The team I used to clear Nyx was Aigis, Ken, and Mitsuru. A slightly non-standard party, to be sure, but I wanted a weird group. I like Ken more than Yukari, so I picked him as my main healer. And, as much as I hate Mitsuru's battle dialogue (and, well, her mannerisms in general), she was probably the best choice for nuker.
To get everyone's skills required me spending extra time leveling, until my whole party was in the high-70's. It's not like me to overpower content in RPGs, but I ended up doing it on accident, as the final boss caused me little to no trouble. And I was so prepared! I burned through all my gems to stock up on Sutras, Balms of Life, and Homonoculii (?!), most of which wern't needed.
The ending was satisfactory, even if the Bad Ending and the Good Ending share that initial dialogue exchange. I was afraid everybody was going to forget what had happened! But, luckily, Mitsuru remembered her past just in time to leap in slow-motion off the school auditorium's stage and make a dramatic exit with the other members of SEES.
Seeing Hugo (my character) cozied up with the robot was disconcerting to the say the least, but then again, you just look at Hugo, and you know he would be the type to fall asleep in the lap of a female android that's totally falling for him. He's just chill about it.
The Answer
(After my first night playing the Persona 3's epilogue, my thoughts on it spilled into a jumbled mess of words, replicated below. After that you can find some slightly more sound writing, although I've only played the game another hour and a half since. Spoilers in this, obviously.)
Maybe it's because he was near death. I'm not sure if you know your character is dead at the end of the main game or the start of the epilogue. In any case, I'll keep that tidbit of information down here. I was spoiled anyway by a review of P3:FES, not that I cared that much. (I have little issue with being spoiled in games)
That was last night, and tonight I started up The Answer, the epilogue to Persona 3 added in the FES re-release. (in case, you know, you haven't played P3 and are reading this anyway) I was just excited to be watching more of this story unfold; granted, P3's story wasn't that interesting, at least to me. It at least went beyond "we need to destroy the ambiguous evil in the world."
Plus, because The Answer is purportedly a 30-hour game, I figured maybe it would be more heavy on story and not follow the exact gameplay patterns of Persona 3. Hey, I might be wrong already!
Within 30 minutes you're set loose to go fight. I form my party, descend into the Abyss of Time, open the first door, and what do I find? More winding hallways filled with monsters! Huzzah! I cleared one floor and quit, my hopes for this epilogue a little dampered*.
I'm sure it will be a good time, but seeing the amount of assets recycled was a little disappointing. Everyone's wearing the same clothes (except Aigis, who's new robo-gear freaks me out), the battle dialogue is all the same, and the gameplay seems to be the same. Heck, I'll be fusing Personas in the Velvet Room like always! Maybe I was expecting too much, but I thought at least they would have thought up something cool for the combat, other than "it's harder," as explained to me before starting the game.
The Answer seems to be a new story wrapped around the same game, which I probably should have been expecting. Maybe something changes; after all, I never reached that second floor behind the first door. It's possible that everything changes there.
I probably just wasn't in the mood tonight. Oh, and hearing "I need your help!" every few seconds is sure to be tons of fun. At least they recorded her saying the names of all 170 Personas. Isn't that something.
* While a "damper" can be put on something, the act of putting said damper on something can not be referred to as "dampering." I used the word regardless.
Updated impressions
Mitsuru pointed out that the dungeon hub that is the Desert of Doors is "exactly like Tartarus." Everyone is expressing their exhaustion at having to fight again. Frankly, I feel the same way.
Maybe I was expecting to much out of this game; I just figured The Answer would be more about the story and would give you some new gameplay mechanics and a new way to look at the game. Ultimately, being a condensed experience, this isn't the same Persona. There are more dungeons to burn through, more characters to interact with, but there's no Social Linking, and the fusion system feels gimped to me.
Part of my problem with The Answer is probably a larger issue, dealing with the nature of dungeon-crawling in general. RPG dungeons, especially this game's, feel very detached from the story itself. You don't even get Persona 4's clever, thematic dungeons; these are just a jumble of hallways, baddies, and chests, the only difference between each block of Tartarus being the walls and the Shadows.
In theory, SEES was "unlocking" the "mysteries" of the tower, but there's actually a very simple explanation for its exsistence: it's a big podium on which Nyx will stand when she needs to bring about the end of the world.
Really, if the crux of Persona 3's story was supposed to be Tartarus, and Shadows, and Nyx, and The Fall, then whatever that story was, I didn't care that much. At the start of the game, I was worried that P3's plot would be nothing more than "bad things pose a vague threat to all mankind." At some point, the story did go in a few directions, with the relationships between characters being the more interesting things to me.
The marriage of gameplay and story has evolved over the years. Games still have cutscenes, but there's the growing crowd of indie forward-thinking-types who want to do away with cutscenes and go for the Half-Life method of all scripted events. I like the Valve approach, but I'm not entirely against cutscenes; I mean, I'm playing a Japanese RPG. This is nothing but riding the rails and seeing what happens.
I really don't know what can be done to dungeon-crawling to better meld it into a game's world; I just know that P3 is, in my mind, a bad example of dungeon-crawling. The concept is terrifying in and of itself, and is reminiscent of old-school trends: one, big dungeon, with over 250 near-identical floors. Barely anything story-driven happens here, at least while you're leveling.
As Jeff Gerstmann once put it, "this is why I don't make games, because I don't really know what they should be doing." There are a lot of creative people out there, but maybe the JRPG scene isn't the most creative. Atlas at least seems a bit more foreward-thinking; the high school-sim/dungeon-crawling genre is something all their own, but even something as interesting and fresh as Persona is steeped in the traditions of old, good and bad.
Is my wish unrealistic? I don't know. All I know is Persona 3's approach to dungeon design is not something I'm in favor of. There are most definetly better ways to do it. That, along with the fact that there's no Social Linking, will probably make for a more bland Persona experience. At this point, the only carrot stringing me along is 10-20 minutes of dialogue between finishing blocks.
As I say at the end of most impressions, "we'll see." We'll see if The Answer can be more than a tedious revisiting of the Press Turn system. I think I'll try and finish it regardless. I was playing some this morning, even. The enemy was casting Ice, so I switched to a Persona immune to ice. Then it cast wind instead, which I was weak to, and I died. Fantastic!
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