#man. improving a character's build is so hard when your stats are already decent

[rubys-domain]

i hate the marechaussee domain

[entergamingxp]

Sword Art Online Alicization Lycoris Review — Fails to Fully Actualize its Ambitions

August 11, 2020 11:00 AM EST

Sword Art Online Alicization Lycoris attempts to revamp the franchise and breathe new life into it, with very polarizing results.

Sword Art Online Alicization Lycoris starts players off with a bang, and for fans of the anime, it’s quite different from how the series starts. After a very basic tutorial that introduces the block, attack, and Sword Skills, you’re thrown in the season’s final battle against the all-powerful Administrator. The fight itself is impossible to lose, as nothing happens if Kirito’s (the protagonist) HP is depleted.

The mechanics of combat are simple and don’t require much effort to learn. However, the controls for combat are rather subpar. Somehow, the controls are both slippery and floaty, meaning it’s difficult to maneuver Kirito without him sliding around and completely missing the enemy. There is an upside to this opening battle and combat in general, at least — it feels incredibly satisfying when you land a skill. At this point in Sword Art Online Alicization Lycoris, there are tons of skills to choose from and they all have that nice anime flashiness to them, not to mention the substantial damage they hit for.

Once the Administrator’s health dips below a certain amount, her and Kirito engage in a final heated clash of swords.

“The plot develops slowly, and I mean at an absolute crawl at times.”

After a bright flash of light, Sword Art Online Alicization Lycoris‘s main story actually begins with a de-powered Kirito who’s been thrown into a mysterious but somewhat familiar virtual world known as “Underworld.” He soon meets a young man named Eugeo who helps him get accustomed to the village and the world at large. As Kirito explores more, he realizes what makes Underworld so special: the A.I. that populates the world behave just like humans and are completely unaware of their status as fictional beings.

Under the belief that Kirito is essentially a chosen one who is dropped into his world by the gods, Eugeo tours Kirito around his village and shows him the Gigas Cedar, a giant tree that drains energy from his village. It is his Calling — a special goal given to each villager to work towards each day or die trying — to cut down this tree with a power axe. Kirito tries to help but discovers how daunting the task is. Eugeo then reveals that his family line has been working toward this goal for 300 years now.

As Kirito and Eugeo work and train (with the former’s goal of figuring out how to complete the latter’s goal quickly so he can be escorted into the main capital) we also find out about Eugeo’s younger sister, Alice, and how she was taken away by an Integrity Knight for violating the taboos of the land. The plot switches its focus to saving her and it continues from there, following the general story beats of the anime with the exception of a new female character named Medina who joins the roster a bit later on.

The plot develops slowly, and I mean at an absolute crawl at times, as Kirito uncovers more of the secrets permeating the world. Though the pacing is off, I enjoyed watching their relationship mature and Kirito get to know each major villager. And because Sword Art Online Alicization Lycoris has far more breathing room to spend on developing the characters, they feel more fleshed out and it’s much easier to become invested in their world and growth. Eugeo, of course, benefits from this fleshing out the most, unlike in the anime where they barely have enough time to get a sprinkling of chemistry before the story whisks them along.

Alicization Lycoris still features the classic mechanics of the series, such as building Renown. By either speaking with NPCs or by completing quests, you can increase this stat which determines how people perceive you. This also affects your Affinity with them as well. It’s similar to the stat found in other Sword Art Online titles, which has the same effect of allowing the player to recruit more party members.

“And while the combat has been completely overhauled and simplified to allow for a seemingly more accessible experience, it is not very good.”

This is also an important feature for the usual dating sim mechanic that is present in any SAO game. By answering questions correctly in the heart-to-heart minigame for each eligible bachelorette, you increase their Affinity toward Kirito, which can unlock a special ending and scenes with them. As usual, if you’re invested in that sort of thing, it’s there, but if you elect to ignore it, there’s no penalty against you.

Kirito and other party members possess several stats: System Control Authority, Weapon Type, Ex Skills, Persona, Anima, and their current Affinity with Kirito. There’s also Proficiency, which correlates with how often you use a weapon. Raising this stat, or its Bond, is important for mastering certain abilities. Requiring Kirito to essentially level up his weapon usage is a visceral way to earn his power and skill, and it matches perfectly with the more organic fantasy setting of Alicization Lycoris that rewards a hard work ethic.

You can also affix equippable abilities, called Attachments, to armor which can have a range of passive effects. More powerful Attachments tend to also have a temporary usage period to mitigate any overuse. Although these stats suffer from the same issues as other SAO titles, in that they’re often convoluted and not very useful, it has been far more streamlined in Alicization Lycoris. The UI is also much less cluttered and easier to navigate which is a refreshing improvement.

Combat consists of controlling Kirito as you give directions to your normally AI-controlled party during any given sorte. Your team can perform special team-up skills as well, which are vital for some of the stronger foes. And while the combat has been completely overhauled and simplified to allow for a seemingly more accessible experience, it is not very good. As stated before, the controls are often floaty and imprecise, despite the decent lock-on mechanics. And though skills are satisfying when integrated with normal combos to devastating effect, landing those skills can often be an exercise in frustration thanks to said skills having little weight and impact, as well as being difficult to time in the first place.

Sword Art Online Alicization Lycoris is an experimental title to be sure. It eschews the tried and true conventions of the franchise and instead attempts to create a more unique experience. The beginning, despite its glacial pacing, is also refreshing in its focus of drawing out the personalities of both Kirito and Eugeo while creating a charming world that you slowly become invested in. Even the inclusion of Medina is interesting since she’s the first herald of how the story will alter from the second half of the anime. Her character itself is intriguing and I found myself wanting to learn more about her and her importance to the plot.

The biggest roadblock with the plot, though, is the same as in the animated version. Once you hit the Sword Mastery Academy, the plot takes a noticeable nosedive. The newly introduced characters are bland window dressing solely there to service Kirito’s (and to a point Eugeo) own arc.

Though I will admit that once again the title’s slower pace makes the characters a little more endearing in this incarnation, there is no excuse, however, for this game to still have the infamous sexual assault scene from the anime. And while it doesn’t graphically depict said scene, this would have been a perfect opportunity to completely remove it and create an entirely new scene that serves the same character arc purposes, since it’s already established that this game will be diverging from the original story.

“Alicization Lycoris‘s best feature is its multiplayer.”

Alicization Lycoris‘s best feature is its multiplayer, which you unlock after clearing the first chapter. It features a pretty competent character creator (decent options that are standard in any SAO title) to go along with the enjoyable mission and side quest-based gameplay that’s often a welcome break from the occasional monotony of the main game. It’s a shame that such a fun part of the game is hidden behind over 12 hours of initial gameplay.

However, neither the single or multiplayer can hide the technical and graphical issues. It’s important to clarify that these are easily the best-looking graphics to date in a Sword Art Online game. The environments are uniquely designed, vibrant, colorful, and sometimes even pretty. But there are plenty of poorly rendered textures and the pop-in is extremely noticeable. Even worse are the frame rate issues, which for a turn-based JRPG would be forgivable, but are absolutely unthinkable in an action JRPG where timing is vital and slowdown can cost you a hefty chunk of dealt damage. Fixes have been coming to at least improve the abysmal FPS, so hopefully, those who already purchased the title will have a better experience moving forward.

Overall, credit is due to Sword Art Online Alicization Lycoris for trying to change up the far too familiar formula of the franchise and offer both veteran and new players a brand new experience. But the problems in the plotline, gameplay, graphics, and technical issues impact it significantly. Although it’s not a bad game at all, it’s also not a very good one and becomes difficult to recommend to anyone outside of series fans.

August 11, 2020 11:00 AM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/08/sword-art-online-alicization-lycoris-review-fails-to-fully-actualize-its-ambitions/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=sword-art-online-alicization-lycoris-review-fails-to-fully-actualize-its-ambitions

[thethousandscars]

So I know my blogging hasn’t been great this year. It’s been odd, the last few months. Between editing three books and my new job, blogging hasn’t really been on my agenda lately. However, I am pleased to say that with SPFBO5 about to begin, I am returning to the author reviews you know and love! But I’m still going to review video games. It’s the one thing that keeps me from going senile.

Even though my job is video games.

Introduction

This has been a game that’s been a long time coming. I bought this game in 2014, and I decided to hold off on it until things became more…developed. With the game hitting 1.0 officially in December 2018, I felt it was finally time to review it.

As you can tell, I’ve put some serious hours into this game, and I’ve probably seen 10% of the content.

Kenshi feels like a twisted, weird mix of games a child would dream up as the ideal video game. Is it the ideal video game? Lord no, but it does one hell of a good job in many areas.

I am a huge fan of open-ended sandboxes were you can just do what you want, but very few seem to do this right. This was made by a very small development team and I could tell as soon as I bought it that it was a game worth supporting. Even if it didn’t go much further, I could afford to spend 10-15$ on it. I have a lot of respect for anyone who can make a game, particularly in this day and age when there is just so much competition. The indie market is booming and with it a lot of the stigma attached to indie developers is fading, as AAA titles continue to frustrate consumers with their practices. It’s the right time to get into it.

Kenshi’s development was slow at first, and originally I did wonder if it was ever going to reach a stage where I would go into it and play it. Then more and more progress was made…and now it’s just impressive just how much is packed in this game.

The Game

This game reminds me a lot like Mount and Blade Warband, another game which I bloody adore. The graphics look like shit, if you want my honest opinion. It looks and feels bloaty, the engine is buggy and badly optimised,  there is no voice acting and no true narrative exists. What’s shocking is virtually none of this matters when it comes to Kenshi. It should be a bad game with how much it crams in, all these different parts somehow working. Parts of the game make me think it’s still an alpha version, and there’s some serious flaws with it but man. . .I love it. It’s an amazing role-playing sandbox.

You are given a massive open-ended map (And I mean it’s huge. 870 square km), full of varied biomes, different factions, and just given a smack on the bum. Go and enjoy. Make your own story. It gives you almost nothing to work with and the beginning is frustrating. It’s also tough. You will die a lot.

To give you an idea just how large the Kenshi map is, here is a slideshow. The first slide shows the Waystation, with The Hub in the distance. Most playthroughs will begin near the Hub, for it is a good starting area in the game.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

This gives a good indication just how massive the map is in Kenshi.

  Onto the story element, there is none, or at least no direct narrative. There is a ton of well crafted lore in the game world of course, but nothing for you to follow. You really need to have some level of creative thinking to get the most out of this game. It’s a role playing game at its purest level. You do need to spend a lot of time with this game, it’s certainly not for the faint hearted. You need to have patience in dealing with some semi-broken mechanics, long loading times as the engine chugs on its single-core, and handle a lot of rough elements. What lies under the rough surface is a game of surprising complexity and depth.

I lost my entire party 10 minutes later to a horde of starving bandits.

However the game’s sheer openness in this case is its biggest strength, with a literal torrent of things to do. It might not be pretty to look at but its mechanics are incredible. I don’t understand how this game manages to fit in so many different genres and play-styles at once like some fucked experiment. Some of them don’t work at times, others are buggy, but for a game to do all this at once, and do a decent job overall, is seriously impressive and deserves recognition. Do they work all the time? No.

You can build your own settlements, hire mercenaries, enslave NPCs to do your bidding, form your own company. The learning mechanics are brilliant, with so many ways to train your characters. You have guilds to join, shit to steal, crops to grow. It’s not so much a game but as a world to craft your own experience, with a story development on par with Rimworld. It has an awesome body system as well. You get fucked in a fight? You will limp around until you can fix it. I get my leg cut off…just read the description here:

A character with a wounded leg will limp or crawl and slow the party down, wounded arms means you must use your sword one-handed or not at all. Severe injuries will result in amputees needing robotic limb replacements. Blood loss means you can pass out, and the blood will attract predators. A character’s stats are affected by equipment, encumbrance, blood loss, injuries and starvation.

This game gives zero shits about you, but it is also surprisingly accessible. While the game is perma death, getting into fights is a great way to get stronger. If you get put in jail, you get healed up and fed while you struggle to break out. Everything you do improves your stats in some way, so don’t shy away from tough situations. The games systems are easy to exploit and easy to break, but doing so will make parts of the game lose its aura.

Building a settlement is hard. You get to research all sorts of things with a research bench and the right materials, but the game punishes you when you start setting out on your own. You’ll get attacked by enemies on a bullshit degree, factions will come demanding tax money, bandits will demand food or money to leave you alone, and don’t get me started on the Holy Nation. Fuck those assholes. My current 30 hour play-through is dedicated to a group of plucky souls building an army to destroy them.

There are plenty of factions to play with, all with different styles. The Skeletons don’t need to eat, but can’t heal themselves without expensive Repair Kits and are hated by nearly everyone. The United Cities are a corrupt, slavers paradise. The Sheks are a warrior kingdom who look down on smuggling drugs (But you can make lots of money if you don’t get caught by their smuggling checks), while the Holy Nation are racist fanatics with a powerful belief in religion and purity. Seriously, fuck the Holy Nation.

Oh, and cannibals. There are lots of those.

This is one of the most impressive open worlds I’ve ever seen in a video game. You can play it as an RPG, a city builder, a fighting game and a stealth game, and do a pretty damn good job in all of them. I’ve rarely seen that in gaming.

If it sounds like I’m gushing, I’m not. Kenshi has some pretty glaring flaws, and if you’re one of those guys who want good optimisation and things to look pretty then you’re going to have a brain injury if you play this game. It’s buggy, chugs harder than a train on National Rail, ugly, and lacks a general direction, certainly. Do I wish it wasn’t as unstable at times? Yes. Do I regret my time with Kenshi? Lord no.

Nonetheless, I mean it when I say this is one of those endless experiences that deserves a chance. I can see myself writing a new novel just from my roleplaying experiences in this game. With an extensive modding scene, we might see some really impressive things in the future.

I will caution this: while there is a healthy modding scene, the tools themselves are limited. While this is a shame, you can fix a lot of base problems in Kenshi already through mods, and the game has been successful enough for the devs to make a sequel, with any engine fixes and improvements to be made to the original Kenshi.

  Pros

Huge world crammed full of deep lore and lots of things to do.

A.I is crude, but it does the job fairly well.

Unforgiving learning curve is satisfying to overcome, even if it takes dozens of hours.

Some of the games visuals can look good.

An excellent combat system that syncs well with the training mechanics.

Almost endless gameplay.

Despite the limitations of the modding engine, it has a healthy scene

A varied mix of factions with their own deep lore.

A great choice of weapons.

So many genres!

A large quantity of mods that add even more mechanics, game starts and factions.

The ultimate sandbox game.

Cons

Brutal early game and lack of hand holding will turn many players off.

Frequent long loading times, even with an SSD.

Ugly environments for the most part.

Limited in some ways by the creativity of the player.

No true story or endgame.

Obtuse squad micromanagement at times.

Despite an extensive number of mods, the modding tools are fairly limited.

Unfortunately you cannot conquer towns and claim them for your own. However, there is a mod in progress that adds this feature!

Much of the open world is feature-sparse desert.

Buggy pathfinding at times.

  To close things off, here are some screenshots I took in-game, and a little story to go with it. This is my current play-through, 50 days in (with no fast forward) and 35 hours.

Khronin and Viro, unlikely rivals turned friends, have a new goal. After Viro was attacked by Holy Sentinels and left for dead, Khronin has sworn vengeance against the Holy Nation.

Khronin’s skill in battle and charisma begins to grow the army. This growing force of disgruntled Sheks and bought slaves prepare themselves for their ultimate goal – the destruction of the Holy Nation.

  With a growing host of skilled fighters, Khronin and Viro take their teams out on training missions against the wild.

  Following a brutal battle between slavers, bandits and our protagonists, Khronin finally decides the time is right to begin their campaign. It will begin in the Holy Farms. Too long have these peasants stood against you. No more.

  FINAL SCORE AND CLOSING THOUGHTS: Kenshi is a hard game to give a score. It has flaws, and a lot of them, but there are few games like this on the market. I’d give this game a 8/10 overall, the bugginess and at times annoying loading bringing down its score. 

The game is not for everyone, but I still recommend you all give it a good go. I play Kenshi zoomed in with my characters, making it more like a close-third person RPG than a top-down strategy game. I suggest you try it out that way as well.

My review on Kenshi! #patientgamers #gaming #amwriting #amediting #rpg #Indie #gamedev So I know my blogging hasn't been great this year. It's been odd, the last few months.

[doktorpeace]

in Persona 5 for me it’s July 11th, meaning I’m exactly 3 months into the game. I’m going to assume I’m getting to about the third way point, both previous games lasted 9-10 months and I’ll assume this one will last until January on the end game Calendar. Here’s my thoughts so far, spoilers inside:

Well I’ve spent a clean 44 hours on the game already so there’s that. I haven’t even been fucking around a lot, I completed Madarame’s Palace in just the 3 required visits and I completely cleaned out Kaneshiro’s Palace in just one discounting Makoto’s joining visit and the re-visit to defeat the boss. I’m really digging the story so far, it feels well paced and everything’s progressing at a reasonable, steady rate but the tension keeps building. It also REALLY breaks tradition, but in ways I’m finding refreshing. I’ve already formed my Judgement Confidant in spite of being only a third(ish?) of the way into the game, and I’ve formed a Confidant relationship with someone I know WILL be a party member even when he’s not a party member yet. Though I don’t trust Akechi as far as I could throw him. I’ll have to play farther into the story to write a real feeling piece about it, I’ll probably do that once I complete the game. Igor’s got me scared though, and I really loved and trusted Igor wholly in the last two games. My social stats are progressing well, I’m at rank 4 on Knowledge, 3 on Guts (promoting to 4 soon I think), 3 on Charm, 2 on Kindness, and 2 on Proficiency (also promoting soon). I knew Knowledge and Guts would be the most important ones going in, they always are so I’ve given them a special priority. So far I love this game, it’s really stellar and it’ll be my game of the year for certain. Everything works really well, my sole complaint at this point is that one time I had a shadow not join me after giving two good answers to its questions during a negotiation and I wasn’t told why not, but whatever it’s fine. The dungeons are getting steadily tougher and I really like the variety in design approaches they take. Kaneshiro’s was incredibly long but could be done all at once if you had enough items and good enough pacing, Madarame’s required more involvement and opting into scripted events since you had to get stuff done in the real world as well, and given it was a tutorial dungeon Kamoshida’s was also good. Honestly the level design in the Palaces has all been really good and I’ve liked each more than the last by quite a bit. I even got unlucky with some Onis getting crits and hitting my whole party with Rampage near the beginning of my run through Kaneshiro’s Palace and I still made it through so I was pretty happy with that. The main plot and characters are very much enjoying that the game, while fairly lighthearted so far, takes itself seriously and handles its themes maturely. They don’t make jokes about serious things and they let things have the weight that they should. The Party Member’s social links going on lockdown if you advance them too fast to wait for another moment in the plot is also a great idea since it means they can build in some of the character’s development from the plot into the social link and vice versa. This, combined with how the social links each focus on them growing as a person from the issue that caused them to be socially outcast and ostracized in the first place gives it a more down to earth feel. The party members have noticeable growths of character and mindset in both components of the game’s writing side by side, and it’s good to see them finally address this issue the series had been having. Rather than being like Persona 4 and making each of them a HUGE LIFE CHANGING EVENT THAT HAS A MASSIVE EFFECT ON THEIR PERSONALITY but then that having no bearing on the plot so the whiplash of maturity is really immersion breaking, this game’s focus on a more personal push towards growth and change. Be it making amends for past mistakes like Ryuji, finding a new source of strength with Ann, or pushing forward and grasping his future in spite of his situation like Yusuke, they all have to deal directly with what caused them to become an outcast in the first place, and feel like strong bits of development that don’t completely change them as people. I personally like and relate to Makoto’s being about being more honest with oneself and living for you, and not for the expectations others have for you. This sense of giving situations the gravitas and seriousness they require extends to side social links as well, of which I’ve liked all the ones I’ve found. One that sticks out to me is Kawakami’s social link. She is your teacher and you happen to hire her through a maid service because Ryuji and Mishima are fucking dumbasses who want to see a hot maid do chores for them and the situation you find yourselves in is naturally a little sexually charged, something which the game does not ignore or distract from. It owns up to the awkwardness of the situation it sets up. As the social link progresses (without Ryuji and Mishima there) it even gives the player the option to try and hit on her in a sexual manner, but she turns you down on the grounds that A) You’re her student B) the age gap is gross and C) specifically sites it would make her no better than Kamoshida, who was your first target as the Phantom Thieves in no small part because he sexually harassed and in one case raped a student. The fact that the game doesn’t just walk the walk of saying ‘oh yeah sexually assaulting minors is bad’ which is obvious to anyone of decent moral standing, but further drives the point home and WON’T make an exception for you because you’re the player is very good and not something many games are willing to do.  The variety of characters you encounter during social links is also nice, from a washed up politician genuinely trying to improve the world after learning from his mistakes, to the owner of a model weapon shop doing illicit business, to just the guy who runs the Phantom Thieves’ Forum they’ve all got a charm to them and feel well written. One that worried me initially was one where you meet a news reporter in a bar and the bar happens to be run by a drag queen. I was worried cause I had heard this content was transphobic, but seemingly that was a misunderstanding from someone playing the japanese version with less than a perfect understanding of the language. Lala Escargot as she goes by, is voiced by a man in both versions and is referred to with ‘-chan’ and female pronouns, however this is proper etiquette for drag queens while playing their stage persona. Further, Lala Escargot is shown to be of good moral standing and isn’t made out to be a joke, two things I was glad to see happen. This game’s schedule also feels good. Like I said, I’m about a third of the way in and I feel like I’ve been able to make comfortable growth with both social stats and social links, and I was worried about that because the game really railroads you a lot in the first two plot arcs, but it’s working out comfortably. Combat feels really good, while spell animations feel a tiny bit less flashy than previous games I’ve still only seen a handful of them, and the combat animations are all still really good. The balance is great, I feel challenged but not overwhelmed, but it is noticeably getting a lot harder with each main palace. Your Teammate’s in combat abilities they gain from social links are definitely nerfed compared to P4 or P3 Portable, but honestly that’s welcome in my opinion. In the previous games they were flat out overpowered and could carry you through the game. As is they feel like nice bonuses that happen just often enough you don’t forget they’re there, but not so often that they take away any feeling of depth or strategy, particularly in P4 where they were extremely ‘Win More’ mechanics. Particularly the ‘Save the main character from death once per battle’ is reduced to a chance, but can happen more than once per battle if you’re lucky, and requires the relationship be at rank 9 instead of rank 5. A hefty but welcomed nerf that doesn’t eliminate any feeling of danger. Oh also! The fact that your non-party member Confidants confer permanent benefits, some in combat, some out of combat is a GREAT incentive to level them up. I know that I’m focusing on Kawakami’s so hard because it frees up so many phases in the game, not having to waste my own time brewing coffee or doing laundry is a huge boon, plus 1 point in knowledge from lecture (assuming I get the answer right) can be exchanged for two lockpicks and two points in proficiency, or a book read and its bonuses which is a great bonus effect. Eventually she even gives you the ability to go out at night after going dungeon crawling which in and of itself is an ENORMOUS benefit. Finally, as for the party members it’s really cool the variety this party has and their variety of motivations. They’re a very fun group whose personalities work together dynamically an in a fun way, I know I still have 3 party members left to get, so we’ll see how they affect things. I’m just loving how much we get to see them all interact, between how many plot events there are and that there’s at least one text chatlog a day with everyone talking together, it gives you a ton of dialogue with them and time to see their party dynamic.  Ryuji’s a good boy. I like him a lot, he reminds me a lot of myself in terms of behavior. His social link has been a little slow, but cute, and his date sequences when you aren’t actively going up ranks are also cool. One big improvement he has over Yosuke in particular is that after being hit on by a couple of gay guys he just expresses distaste for the situation and leaves it at that. He was uncomfortable with it, but he doesn’t hark on it and veer off into being a homophobic shitbag like Yosuke. But Atlas, blease let him be gay in the expansion I know you’re going to make. Let me date the vulgar boy he’s such a cute good boy. Really though his growth as a person is already tangible, he’s gone from feeling like a total outsider with nothing to work for and nothing to lose to being a fairly responsible guy who owns up to his mistakes. He’s still not smart but he’s grown enough that he’s the party member to remind the others to keep it calm and lay low after a major operation, which is a really cool role for him to play. Ann is fucking great, her force of personality and strength as a character is immediate right from the start. I was worried for her, but she’s an explosive character, a lot of facets to her personality and situation are revealed to you quickly and then elaborated on over the course of her social link and when you hang out with her or go on sunday dates together. She’s obviously a kind, strong individual but she questions her own genuinity and strength as a person, and is exploring different ways to broaden her horizons and improve. I was a little worried she’d be a generic spitfire angry girl, but really she’s only super pissed off at injustice and sexual harassment. A big part of her character comes from her staunch hatred and opposition ‘of men who treat women as sexual outlets’ (literally word for word something she says) and it’s a really strong, cool way for her to be. I’m very grateful for the game’s writing for having such a staunch, unmoving stance in opposition of treating women like objects especially in a series like Persona where fans have an extremely gross tendency to do just that. It’s a good lesson and message to put out there. In other cases she’s actually really level headed and willing to admit when she was wrong or when someone’s outplayed her. I like Ann a lot. Yusuke’s a really deep and interesting character who I sadly keep blowing off for Makoto and Ryuji, but I’ll hang out with him more soon. His circumstances are really fucking difficult, first of all he’s an orphan, which sucks. Secondly his adoptive father is abusive, which really sucks. Third off he’s autistic. Seriously, think on his dialogue and tell me I’m wrong. We directly get the line ‘not many people will deal with my eccentricities’ which is as close as Japanese media ever gets to saying ‘yes I’m autistic.’ His dialogue often hints to how people ostracize him for being autistic even though he’s a great guy and I’m sure it’ll come up in his social link in the future. I’m glad the game paints it as a negative thing for society to treat him bad and not that it’s bad he’s autistic, it’d be very easy to slip into that but they haven’t fucked up yet. And finally, he’s fuckin gay dude. Don’t fight me on this one, I know a gay when I see one. He specifically dodges the idea of being attracted to Ann ‘as a member of the opposite sex’ and the way he says it isn’t ‘oh I’m interesting in girls, just not Ann’ it’s much more ‘I’m not interested in girl, and thus not interested in Ann.’ He’s got a lot going against him, but unlike with Kanji nobody acts like it’s weird he isn’t attracted to Ann (though Ryuji will rib the player for saying the same thing) and everybody’s doing their best to be supportive of him. I’m excited to see more of his character and see how he overcomes the ways society is stacked against him. You can even take him on dates and he comments that it looks like you’re lovers. I hope he gets a nice boyfriend. (also atlus please make him a romance option in the expansion as well.) Finally Makoto is the character I’ve most been suspicious of how she fits in. She’s an honor student, lives in a nice house, has a sister in a high paying job, was born into a good family, what’s bad about her life? Well, she’s outcast from the average student because she’s ‘just a robot’ and she has these obscene expectations thrust upon her, yet people still call her useless. She has to constantly wear a face and be who people expect her to be and not who she really is. It’s a more subtle kind of outcasting and she certainly doesn’t face the negatives the other members do like being an orphan or having their best friend hospitalized after a suicide attempt, but she’s got her own set of issues which are playing out alongside these things. The game also doesn’t frame her situation as equally bad, it’s just a very stressful, difficult situation for her and she really needs an outlet and somewhere she can genuinely just be herself. The fact that her rebellion is just having a space to express herself normally in is kind of fucked up, she had a really suffocating life and now she doesn’t and I like that. Her Confidant relationship is also really fun so far, I like Makoto even if she’s not an outcast in as strong or the same kind of way as everyone else. I don’t have a lot to say about Morgana so far. I like him, he’s an enormous step up from Teddie, but I think I’ll only be able to write how I really feel about him once the game is over. All in all I fucking love this game and it’s a huge improvement over all of Atlus’ old products in all the ways I’d hope it would be. I’d still prefer there be a gay romance option in the game, but the fact that you can take guys on dates and that you have a gay party member who isn’t treated as weird for it is great. 10/10, my personal game of the year already.

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

Oh! I wanna hear your hyper critical opinions towards p3 (and p4 if youre up to it). I am genuinely curious as to what it is!

pDSOAPFADFJIOA;FJIA;JF;DA Ahhhhhhh if only I wrote down everything I said (I did this over a year ago). under the cut cause long:

It was easier cause I was ripping it as we played and I had some nitpicks in the dialogue (more so with like “WAIT THAT MAKES NO SENSE!” or “WHY ARE YOU JUMPING TO THAT CONCLUSION?!” kinda thing rather than a translation error). But I can’t really specify what it was cause it was so long ago. The only one that comes to mind is when they’re jerks to Naoto, it must be how she’s talking in Japan cause like.......they’re really, REALLY rude to her. Like, they do realize she has a right to be suspicious of them right? Like, don’t get me wrong, I loooooooove the animosity in some way (great foe-yay/rival shipping yay fodder for me to ship her with the MC ahuhuhu 8U) but dang I wish they made more tension (and made it even). That’s actually the one thing I thought the P4 anime did right (and trust me I don’t think that anime did a lot of things right, esp concerning Naoto...ironically XD), they really built the tension between her and the group very well. Anyway I want to go into more detail some other time, maybe when I replay the two games, but for now I’ll give you a general overview). 

Ok so all and all I think P3 and P4 are fine the way they are. They did a good job with them. P3 for being Hashino’s first hoorah into the series (also didn’t have enough time or money to include everything and had to cut stuff, LIKE THE FEMC! ;W;), and P4 for.....having such....a small.....budget....and....not a lot of time....and.....the company was struggling.....Like dang man I’m surprised we got P4. So like, compared to P5, I’m a lot easier on these two cause in one case Hashino was trying to find his style, and the other he was struggling with working with almost nothing (P5, however, didn’t have any of these issues).

Ok so like.....My biggest issue with P3 is mostly it’s characters and character relationships. P4.....I wish we could’ve hung out with Naoto earlier (even before she joined the team, that would’ve been interesting if the MC and her met up and attempted to draw more info out of each other about the case), and I wouldn’t have minded if they added more to the murder plot. 

P3....ngl the first act until Aigis show’s up is.....so....slow.....and boring....and no one is really likeable imo. I hated Yukari, I hated Junpei. Mitsuru seemed interesting but she wouldn’t hang out. Akihiko....didn’t really care for him, but I couldn’t  hang out with him. I couldn’t hang out with Yukari or Junpei if I wanted to (Yukari won’t hang out till around Aigis joins anyway, I remember from my last playthrough we tried, it was an NG+ and she snubbed us). Kenji is a moron (don’t hate him, feel bad for him, but god so boring), Kaz is a moron, didn’t do Yuko the first time (should’ve I did like her, hate I only got the first rank the first time I ever played through P3), I didn’t like Chihiro (she started off fine but was kinda creepy later on), can’t hang with Fuuka unless you have maxed courage cause eff me (not like I can ever remember her gd link anyways that’s how forgettable it is, I don’t even like Yukari but at least I remember her’s). Basically......the SL sucked balls. Major balls (I liked Maiko, the Star dude, the old couple, the Hermit, and the Devil......I guess the Tower too he was ok, and....that’s it....for outside teammate links aka Aigis and Mitsuru). Silly was not a happy camper when she popped P3 in after having fun with P4 (and esp after being told P3 was a GAZZILLION TIMES BETTER!!!!1!), tbh I took like a 4 month break from P3 and replayed P4 before I picked P3 back up (after Aigis showed up I def enjoyed it a heck of a lot more after that). Now, P3′s plot is really good and very solid, it’s P3′s strong point. My issue is that.....everything P3 does is for the sake of the plot. It does it well, don’t get me wrong, but everything about the characters is only happening cause “plot demands it.” They never felt super fleshed out, and it’s probably why they feel a little odd (maybe even flat-ish) in the spinoff games (even more so than the P4 team), cause the spinoff games aren’t relying on their (P3′s) plot. I also don’t buy a lot of their friendships (esp the males teammates with the Male MC), Yukari and Mitsuru’s is....ok (I don’t like how the game makes it feel like “oh you have a dead dad? me too! let’s be friends” as a thing, I know she’s just trying to relate and sympathize but.....I’ve seen that as a complaint come up by a lot of people, for someone so popular Yukari isn’t much of a people person in this regard, from how the game frames it that is). Also the fact you can’t friend girls. There’s not a lot of bonding moments in the game, there’s more than P5, but I still don’t feel as close to the team as I should even by the end. And gawd, Ryoji? Wut I’m friends with him now? How? When? I like the guy but I don’t think he likes me. You’d think he’d want to hang out with me cause.....PHAROS! ;W;

There’s more but I don’t want to leave you hanging, but anyway it’s just....I have a lot of issues with how the characters are handled. They’re good characters, I wish there just....more to them. But the thing is.....THIS IS AN EASY FIX! You’ve probably heard me say about the P5 manga/anime “a change in medium can do wonders” or something like that. That’s cause I have P3 to look at. The manga and movies do wonders for P3 my problems with P3. There’s more bonding, character relationships are improved yadda yadda. Yes there are issues within the manga and movies themselves...... but they do a lot of good things too. One of the things the movies did was actually......influenced by it’s P3P remake (aka establish a relationship with Ryoji, yay!). Oh man, P3P/the FeMC fixed sooooooooooooo many problems (it also added some even more awesome duality to a game that already had a lot of duality going on with it), I can talk to Yukari and Junpei from the get go (and they treat me different, and more pleasantly than when I played as the dude), I can actually hang out with the guys (and I DON’T automatically have to date them, in fact I have to work to date them, every single one), the stats for character requirements are laid out more fairly like in P4 so by the time someone is available I can probably talk to them (without having to kill myself trying to manage my social stats).But man, the first act just flows so much better when you’re able to bond with your teammates (also Rio and Saori are great SLs!). Even tho they don’t change the female SLs pretty much at all (making it veeeery gay XD), it does feel like it is at least a friendship by the end (even tho I’m literally dating everyone and you can’t tell me otherwise! 8U). I also love her personality comes across more clearing (and varied) than the males, there’s a more clear progression of her psyche than her male counterpart (it’s still there, just not as obvious, and I love how they’re inverted to each other~! :D). It’s just, with P3, the really minor changes go a LOOOOOOOOOOONG way. The only thing I would change with P3 is the minor stuff. Just add more scenes (that don’t take up time) to the game, on both sides. Gameplay wise add more SLs, alternative SLs even. Heck, if they remade the game, I think being able to go to new places would be cool (and it’d be where you’d meet your new SLs) cause man you’re in a city, you deserve to do more stuff! It’s just the little things man, the little things can make a big impact! It says something that probably my fav Persona fanfic and fav Strain42 Persona parody comicis the P3(P) ones, even tho P4 is my fav game. You change a few things around, even the medium, and it makes a difference. 

Ok onto P4. Now P4 is the opposite of P3, with P4 it’s strong point is it’s characters. The characters drive P4. P4 is character based, P3 is plot based. P4 the plot takes a back seat. This is fine, it works in P4′s favor, like how the plot worked in P3′s favor. P4′s plot is ok, it does a great job with supporting the characters. Sadly I understand if you wanted more murder mystery (or just mystery) in a murder mystery game. And in P4′s defense, again, it had a barebones budget and not a lot of time and the company was doing pretty bad and P4 still came out pretty great (was the most popular before P5 came out, lord knows if it may even come out on top again if it gets an updated graphics/gameplay remake). And it’s also really hard to keep a murder mystery going for about 70-100ish hours (and only finally solving it in the last 1/5 of the game). Also P4, like P3 (forgot to mention that above), sticks to it’s theme really well. Even making it solving it/obtaining the good ending routes semi-difficult. Sure you can deduce Adachi, but tbh it’s also difficult. They do a pretty decent job building the guy up as a friend (even more so in P4G due to the SL). Izanami is also well hidden. The game makes you work and it rewards you.

Now if I were to change stuff.....it’d range from minor to major depending on what we’re talking about. Minor would be adding more scenes of Naoto bonding (she needs it cause the late game doesn’t do her justice), and like I mentioned above, I think have a deduction off would be interesting (Naoto’s SL was one of my favs cause of how we solved a gd mystery, god I’m so mad that never made it into the anime, even as an ova, it could’ve been a great team-building filler one too). Another thing I’d add would maybe be.....something similar to quests, but instead you have to solve a mystery (which means talking to people, and investigating areas), it can range from finding a cat in a tree or finding a bully or whatever. Just something minor that can give the mystery lovers something fun to do. I’d also have Izanami/gas station attendant be an SL (she originally was the Empress before giving that to Margret). Oh I’d also like to take Margret out on “dates” (c’mon gimme dem fun shenanigans).  And.....now this can be minor or major (depending on what they do, but it’s probably more major), add another red herring. I don’t care how.....but....it would help draw attention away from Adachi. Maybe they’re added from some of the mini mysteries you solved, maybe they squeeze an extra dungeon into the game some how-some way (doubt it for the later, that’d be a major change), but another red herring would be good. 

For a Major change it’d be restructuring the plot a looooooot, adding more dungeons for more red herrings. I would actually make Dojima a red herring. He originally was suppose to be the killer (but they thought that was too dark, understandable), with Adachi as the red herring instead. Other than that I’m not exactly sure how they’d overhaul that. I mean, if they made a P4 game based off of P3P’s route (aka different route/game, different killer), I’d like to see their prototype stuff play out. Short-haired ice queen Yukiko, delinquent/bully Rise, Pretty boy Naoto (actual boy this time, also make him dateable.....what? I like Naoto 8U), 1st year MC, Female Teddie, Adult(?) Kanji, Dojima as the killer, Adachi as the red herring (Chie and Yosuke are actually pretty much the same). I’d really like to see that. 

But tbh, I don’t really know where to start in giving P4 a major overhaul (except to go with the prototype set up), possibly cause it’d mean introducing/creating new characters. But P5? I do, oh man I know where I would start (P5 is where I’d make my major changes left and right, no minor changes here...except maybe dungeon 1), I’d make soooooo many changes to P5. But that’s for another time (not now, it’d take too long). 8U