#i like playing this game :) i feel like i've gotten a nice groove of stuff going on with the party members and skills

[crest-of-gautier]

4 hour session of pq today :3 here are some of the screenshots i took, mostly related to yosuke... (IM DISEASED ABOUT HIM!!! yosuke mentions are some of my favorite parts of this game!!!)

im 38%-ish done with the 3rd floor of the 2nd labryinth! i don't really have much to say this time because i think i mostly did battling, but i think that interactions with aigis and koromaru are a highlight for me... i love how loved koromaru is!

and i am also pleased to say that the exp sacrifice mechanic has been unlocked. thank fucking god. i keep getting personas flooding into my inventory and im here like "nooo stop that rn!!!"

mechanics-wise i think the only thing left right now is being able to obtain skill cards outside of quests and treasure... maybe they'll give that to me in a later dungeon (i would be very grateful, i love life aid from archangel and would love to transfer it to another navi-oriented persona for fuuka)

[gayelectro]

I've been having a ton of fun with Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life. Like I'm getting all of the nostalgia from playing HMAWL and HMAnWL as a kid without so much of the stress. Not only have the gameplay changes made some stuff way easier, I'm just older now and understand stuff better. I feel like I'm making so much money pretty easily while barely touching crops and so far only having one cow and one sheep.

So many of my neighbors already love me! Daryl, Nina, and Gary already love me and it's only barely the beginning of summer. I'm working on friending up Pui, but I'm getting so many mixed messages on what kind of gifts he likes? His friendship level is really high, but not pink yet.

I'm romancing Molly, which at first I was like "aww she reminds me of my wife" but as I've gotten more cutscenes I'm like "WOW SHE'S SCARILY JUST LIKE MY WIFE???" But I can't stress enough how nice it is to play this game as myself. My character looks like me, uses they/them pronouns, can romance regardless of gender... It's just so nice. So having a character just like her in this town and growing close to her is also just wonderful.

Unfortunately, I think Gustafa is accidentally also falling in love with me. I don't wanna break his heart, but I'm spoken for. I just think he's a cool dude.

I'm wondering if I should buy a Star Bull and breed my one cow, or if I should keep just making it work with my one cow and save up for a fuck ton of goats once they're available to me. I also don't know if I should get more sheep or not. I think I'm not gonna bother with any poultry on my farm until year two or three either, I gotta get into the groove of doing everything with what little time there is before I try to get more animals with different feeds.

[crest-of-gautier]

MORE PQ TIME!!! i'm determined to make good progress on it!! i played for around 4.5 hours today, and got around 52% of the 4th floor done. we have a total of 31 hours in the game and most of my main party is at like level 30/31, i think!

i'm feeling pretty content with my mechanics/persona fusions... there are ways i feel that this operates differently from mainline persona (the way petrification is a status that carries over between battles surprised me!), but i feel like i've really gotten into the groove with the boost system (and i have enjoyed using status ailments more than ever).

i'll probably be getting to see destined partner stuff soon... like as early as next session... i'm very interested in it :3

this time i don't actually have anything to say about the scenes i saw today. there were a few times i was 🔪 at atlus choosing to focus on certain traits for some characters (akihiko with protein and making teddie... very... teddie) but idc to talk about that bc everyone's beat a dead horse abt it. actually wait. i have one thing to say and it's about zen (under the cut)

so when we started spot 4 there's this... scripted battle after you open the door immediately after the staircase- where you get to face the golden hands.

i thought it was interesting to have a forced encounter with them (when it's possible that you might've run into them before) at this stage. game design wise i thought it was nice because it lets the players experiment on their own and come to their own conclusion on how to handle these evasive fucks who are the pain of my existence (i find golden hand movement to be entrancing, actually).

and if you didn't figure out that you could agility bind/panic (via tentarafroo or other means). after the battle, regardless of the outcome (i defeated them), zen just... spells it out for you, tells you directly what strategy you could use.

and i just found that... so very interesting? like yeah, to some people they may look at this and go, "yeah, forced tutorial moment." and i can see that (not that i felt that this instance was a bad thing!).

the point that i'm trying to get at is that i'm particularly interested in how zen knows this. like... to know an innate weakness and countermeasure to them... and when the vr attendants very early on discussed that you shouldn't be able to find living humans in the culture festival, and if you do, they're probably tied to persona/shadow-like entities. i'm like. zen are you pulling this out of your ass because you were a shadow once. i'm shaking him back and forth like a tree in animal crossing!! rah!! tell me your secrets!!!

or of course. the game could just have chosen zen to be a vehicle to give this information to the player and i'm looking way too much into things. i don't think persona should give me another amnesiac character again. i will go crazy over trying to dissect them and see if they challenge the norm of amnesiac persona characters or not. i probably sound like im beating a dead horse but GUYS IM ONTO SOMETHING I THINK.

in any case, i feel the game has had really nice ways of emphasizing the importance of status ailments. way back earlier near the start of the 2nd labryinth, the quest legendary medicine required you to agility bind some lust snakes, and i feel like this kinda alluded to the importance of certain status effects over others? idk. i just think its neat to see how certain quests and monsters can teach you things, y'know? video games...! 🥺💛

i'm reallly looking forward to playing more! while i'd like to finish the group date cafe who knows how sidetracked i'll get... but the floor feels pretty straightforward lol so. we shall see!