#I'd like to revisit P3 first though

[sennaverstappendiary]

barcelonian grand prix ✩ 04.06.2023

so... i can't lie. there are a few races this season that just didn't stick around in my mind like many others, and this is the first one i unfortuntately don't have many personal memories with, except one or two. however, rewatching the race and quali highlights: this was NOT a boring race as many people say it is‼️‼️‼️ not the best race of the season by far, BUT, george russell saves the day by trying to be insane 😁😁😁💥💥 and if i dig deep enough, i will find some memories, rest assured!

this race week was the first one i watched while not being in uni 💕💕💕 i mean, i'm still enrolled, but summer break BABEY 🌞🌞🌞😁😁😁✨✨✨ which was incredibly perfect and fun!! i think i vaguely remember being quite hungover while watching this race... which LMAO of course i was. i was practically always tipsy during may-june (NOT in a toxic way in a very girl slay way actually 🍷🍷🍎🍎🌞🌞🌞👍👍👍) so that's good‼️‼️🥰🥰 i was also very very into fic-writing back then, i wrote my infamous p19 fic in this very race weekend (jeez i wonder why 😵😵😵😵💥💥💥)

qualifying was fun to rewatch, knowing max got pole LOL‼️‼️‼️‼️ what wasn't fun was that i forgot this weekend was p19 weekend. charles. 💔💔💔💔💔💔💔🙅🙅🙅🙅 THAT SHIT made me very sad, even rewatching. suffice to say at this point in the season i had been properly rbr charles coded already so i was manifesting some 2024 shit LOL (guys it can still happen shut up) 🙏🙏🙏🙏✨✨✨✨ i also forgot hulkenberg qualified p3 lmfao that was a funny surprise 😁😁😁😁😁 max slaying like usual also made me very happy to rewatch yaaay 💌💌💌 ALSO CHECO FLOPPING PLEASEEEE GOD. please look at this extra gif below my pookie emma made that shows christian and adrians reaction to this bs 😵😵😵😁😁😁😭😭😭😭

the race was also fun! mercedes had a pretty good weekend, even though both drivers seemed unhappy dfjfgdfhgd 💥💥😭😭😭 whatever... the race highlights showed max twice the whole race: at the start and him crossing the finish line LMFAO so uh pookie too good for da world 😁‼️‼️‼️ nah but it was fun... always something special to see max win barcelona of course, knowing it was his first 🥺🥺🥺🥰🥰🥰🥰 my cutiepie... and george really really put his pussy into the race lmao he was GOING for it 🔪🔪🔪 which was entertaining thank you mr russell... ALSO MAX GRAND SLAM 3!!!! AND 25 SECOND GAP!!! MY BABY!! 💕✨💘🥺💌🥰🥰🥰🌞🌞💘🥺🥺✨✨✨🥺🥺💕💕💕‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️

all in all not a race i'd go back to to watch often, but with it being one of max's amazing grand slams, and with the mercs bringing some entertainment (though i am ALWAYS entertained enough by watching max's gap grow), it's definetely one i enjoyed revisiting 🌷🌷🌷 i feel like this race also represents me getting into the flow of race weekends, if that makes sense!! the novelty had worn off, the love had (and has) not 🥰🥰🥰💕💕💕 that's how i know this is REALLY special 🥺🥺🥺

✩ song of the race: duvet - boa

fuck it, i'll put THE prosenna song here, because i haven't yet. this series is obviously focused on the 2023 season, but believe me, this fucking song and prosenna in general made me love f1 as much as max did 🥺🥺‼️‼️‼️💕💕💕

[a-girl-called-bob]

Maybe I'll come around on it by the time I finish with it, but so far (10 hours in, I've hit the credits), Pikmin 4 is a bit mid. It's simultaneously too easy and yet some of the features that make it easier are frustrating. The auto-locking cursor gets in the way as often as it doesn't, and the game just straight up ignores throws beyond the minimum required to carry something if the cursor is locked to that thing - which you can't turn off. The dog completely removes the challenge of keeping your little guys out of harm's way, and charge attacks with the dog while it's carrying pikmin will routinely one-cycle most bosses, let alone normal enemies.

The rewind feature is nice, but flawed - because it always drops you and all of your pikmin back at the base that was active at the time, and it doesn't checkpoint on activating a new base, *and* there's no way to undo a rewind if it turns out to be way out of your way, it's often easier and more efficient to just redo the whole day - which is the exact sort of thing the rewind feature was supposed to prevent. Meanwhile they removed the ability to load a previous day that's been in every game since the Wii versions of 1 and 2, so if you let the game save after a collossal screw-up, you just have to live with it.

I have a lot more I could say about the game, and a lot of it is nitpicky. For example, I really don't like the soundtrack - so much of it feels like the most forgettable 'whimsical' elements of Hey Pikmin's music combined with the sparseness of BOTW without any of the context that makes that game's soundtrack worth analyzing. They make the bold choice of including a little music box that plays the previous game's main theme in a game that *has no main theme to speak of*. I think the caves rely way too much on Ice Pikmin related puzzles. I think the inclusion of P3!Challenge Mode style levels in the main story was misguided. I think the decision to use a custom player character instead of someone with their own voice and perspective was also misguided, especially when you have an entire support team constantly giving commentary and advice over radio. The house level just made me really mad that we're not getting another Chibi Robo because ol' Cheebo would fit in that space literally perfectly. I think the dissonance between the level and creature designers' deep devotion to continuity and the writers' complete lack of care for it would produce an interesting friction if I actually liked the new boss designs. I Don't Care About Dandori.

As a fan of the series, I've been waiting for Pikmin 4 since about a year after Pikmin 3 released on Wii U. After P3 Deluxe came out and its new side content was overall very solid, it made me more excited and interested to see the direction P4 would take the series. However, as it stands, I'd be hard pressed to give it better than a 7.5/10. If you're hurting for Pikmin to play and you've completed the other games in the series, go ahead. Overall though, I doubt I'll be revisiting this game nearly as much as I have the first three, and that's more than a little disappointing considering the expectations I had for this game.

[solidandsound]

I finished Persona 5! It took me ~140 hours and I ended it at level 81, with about 70% compendium completion. I don’t know if I can say it beats P3 as my fave Persona just because P3 holds a special place in my heart, but it is probably a better game and I most certainly liked it more than P4. More in depth, spoilery discussion under the read more!

I beat the final boss primarily with Satan and Beelzebub, which felt really satisfying considering that I was using them to kill God. I also thought it was interesting that you literally use the seven deadly sins to defeat the final boss. I mean, it uses them to try and keep you down, but you in turn use them as your strength. I love the final boss for having battle mechanics that are ideologically significant, and everything taken together at the end, I think the game gives a very clear thesis. It reframes the seven deadly sins as seven core desires, and states that, even though they can lead to terrible things (ie the palace rulers who are all based on the sins themselves), we should be free to feel them, and that freedom is the most important thing. It’s a very American ideology, and for that reason I think P5 will probably resonate more strongly with a western audience than previous Persona games (the Bible belt notwithstanding, perhaps?). It’s also way cleaner and easier to play, which will help a lot.

I finished all but three confidants. The video game kid and Iwai I got to rank 9 and the fortune teller I got to rank 8. I probably could have finished them all if I focused on the fortune teller sooner since her abilities are so kickass, but she’s such a pain to get started. I also probably could have done Kawakami sooner to make the most of her abilities. The one I most regret not finishing is Iwai. I didn’t expect him to become such an awesome dad figure for the player. Oh yeah, and that’s one way P5 trumps P4: two cool dads instead of just one!

I ended up dating Hifumi. I liked her design, and I liked that she was willing to put herself at a disadvantage to do what’s right, which is something her and the protag have in common. Of course, my first choice was Ryuji, but alas, all teenage boys are straight I guess. I thought I would want to date Yusuke, but I ended up reading him as ace. Maybe I just wasn’t picking up on it, but nothing he said ever seemed like he was hitting on me. Protag and Akechi definitely had some tragic star-crossed lovers vibes, though. I thought about dating Futaba, but in the end she works better as a sister figure. In particular I didn’t want to interfere with her goal of being able to be okay on her own. I also see how Haru is a pretty good option, but I’m kind of turned off by how she’s the only one who has a strongly negative reaction to being turned down. Of course, I saw said reaction after already making the decision not to date her, and I can see how it could help someone’s argument that she is the best girl to date because she likes you more. Makoto was another girl I considered dating, mostly because I love a girl who can beat me up. I was not a big fan of how many adult women (four! four of them!) you are allowed to legitimately date. I don’t remember if there were any adults in P4 that were presented as date options the same way as the other characters. I only remember the nurse, who you can sleep with but not get romantically involved with, and IIRC she’s the devil arcana and the whole thing feels kind of intentionally shady. It seems like that was a gateway to just not caring at all about appropriate age differences. Thanks Persona! At least you can’t date Sae. When she comes up to you on Christmas I got really worried the game set that up for her to be a dating option, maybe just in case you hadn’t started dating anyone else yet by that point.

I like that the game is explicitly about social reform, and that it meaningfully discusses sexism and the Japanese justice system and how these things can be changed. At the same time, the game is shockingly tone deaf. Kamoshida treats Ann like a sexual object, and that’s bad, but somehow multiple anime shots panning over Ann’s boobs are fine? The maybe worst example is when they go to the beach (note: as soon as the beach was presented as a thing that exists I got ready to cringe. The beach is never fun in Persona) and the boys go off to get girls, because of course they do, and they approach and hit on a bunch of random girls, because who doesn’t want to be approached by a group of boys when you’re by yourself? And then when they fail they return to Makoto to see HER getting harassed by some dude, and when he finally leaves everyone agrees that he was a bad guy and what he was doing was shitty, with no self-awareness that that was what they were just doing to other girls. I can say, at least, that the sexism and fanservicey garbage seems to have been toned way down from the last two games. I can only hope this downward trend continues.

Of course, my biggest objection is to the two stereotypical gay dudes whose only traits are that they’re really into teenage boys and are really creepy about it. Nothing about their portrayal is okay, which should be really obvious to literally everyone.

The gameplay itself is really good this time around. I love the new dungeon designs, though I still love the randomly generated dungeon crawling as well and am glad the game has both. I also feel like I benefited a lot from having played not only P3 and P4 but also SMT Nocturne. I was really bad at P3 when I played it, and I thought I was pretty good at P4 but I’ve improved even more. I did not feel this powerful with this cool of a Persona set at the end of either of those games. Nocturne also made me appreciate how much more like SMT this game is compared to P3 and P4, particularly the last stretch of the game, as well as all the stuff around demon negotiation and whatnot. If you’re up for a more traditional RPG experience, I’d recommend playing Nocturne. You’ll appreciate P5 more for it.

In the end, I’d probably give P5 a 9/10. I think the series is (mostly) moving in the right direction, and I’m excited for P6, though I guess we won’t see it until they’re done milking the P5 cash cow. I wouldn’t mind a sequel starring Morgana, though. With the hints at the end about how if Morgana became a human he’d be a lot like protag, I can see Morgana achieving that dream and becoming a resident of the velvet room himself ala Aigis in The Answer.

Now that I’m done this long, long adventure I should take some time to do actual life stuff, but there are still more games on the horizon. I’m still not done Persona Q, though I am trucking along slowly but surely. I also have Tokyo Mirage Sessions waiting for me, and I can get SMT 1 on my phone, so I’d like to play that at some point, too.