#say what you will about Shin Megami Tensei but at least they don’t turn all the demons into twinks

[caiman-the-chimera]

Aw hell naw can’t believe they Yassified the Ars Goetia 😔

But in all seriousness yeah these character designs are just way too, twinkish… it’s almost as if the person who designed these guys was explicitly designing these characters to appeal to the Tumblr Sexyman™ demographic, in other words, these shows are basically just Tumblr Sexyman factories…

Yeah I’m not really a fan of them myself TBH that one guy’s colour palette is burning my eyes

Worst thing about hazbin hotel and helluva boss is we all have like one friend or mutual or acquaintance who loves it and you gotta be kinda nice about it while the show is just begging to be ripped to fucking shreds for how awful it is

[yamayuandadu]

Circe by Madeline Miller: a review

As you might have noticed, a few of my most recent posts were more or less a liveblog of Madeline Miller’s novel Circe. However, as they hardly exhausted the subject, a proper review is also in order. You can find it under the “read more” button. All sorts of content warnings apply because this book takes a number of turns one in theory can expect from Greek mythology but which I’d hardly expect to come up in relation to Circe. I should note that this is my first contact with this author’s work. I am not familiar with Miller’s more famous, earlier novel Song of Achilles - I am not much of an Iliad aficionado, truth to be told. I read the poem itself when my literature class required it, but it left no strong impact on me, unlike, say, the Epic of Gilgamesh or, to stay within the theme of Greek mythology, Homeric Hymn to Demeter, works which I read at a similar point in my life on my own accord.

What motivated me to pick up this novel was the slim possibility that for once I’ll see my two favorite Greek gods in fiction, these being Hecate and Helios (in case you’re curious: #3 is Cybele but I suspect that unless some brave soul will attempt to adapt Nonnus’ Dionysiaca, she’ll forever be stuck with no popcultural presence outside Shin Megami Tensei). After all, it seemed reasonable to expect that Circe’s father will be involved considering their relationship, while rarely discussed in classical sources, seems remarkably close. Hesiod’s Catalogue of Women and Apollonius’ Argonautica describe Circe arriving on her island in her father’s solar chariot, while Ptolemy Hephaestion (as quoted by Photius) notes that Helios protected her home during the Gigantomachy. Helios, for all intents and purposes, seems like a decent dad (and, in Medea’s case, grandpa) in the source material even though his most notable children (and granddaughter) are pretty much all cackling sorcerers, not celebrated heroes. How does Miller’s Helios fare, compared to his mythical self? Not great, to put it lightly, as you’ll see later. As for Hecate… she’s not even in the book. Let me preface the core of the review by saying I don’t think reinterpreting myths, changing relations between figures, etc. is necessarily bad - ancient authors did it all the time, and modern adaptations will inevitably do so too, both to maintain internal coherence and perhaps to adjust the stories to a modern audience, much like ancient authors already did. I simply don’t think this book is successful at that. The purpose of the novel is ostensibly to elevate Circe above the status of a one-dimensional minor antagonist - but to accomplish this, the author mostly demonizes her family and a variety of other figures, so the net result is that there are more one dimensional female villains, not less. I expected the opposite, frankly. The initial section of the novel focuses on Circe’s relationship with her family, chiefly with her father. That’s largely uncharted territory in the source material - to my knowledge no ancient author seemed particularly interested in covering this period in her life. Blank pages of this sort are definitely worth filling. To begin with, Helios is characterized as abusive, neglectful and power-hungry. And also, for some reason, as Zeus’ main titan ally in the Titanomachy - a role which Hesiod attributes to Hecate… To be fair I do not think it’s Hesiod who serves as the primary inspiration here, as it’s hard to see any traces of his account - in which Zeus wins in no small part because he promises the lesser titans higher positions that they had under Cronus - in Miller’s version of events. Only Helios and Oceanus keep their share, and are presented as Zeus’ only titan allies (there’s a small plot hole as Selene appears in the novel and evidently still is the moon…) - contrary to just about any portrayal of the conflict, in which many titans actually side with Zeus and his siblings. Also, worth noting that in Hesiod’s version it’s not Oceanus himself who cements the pact with Zeus, it’s his daughter Styx - yes, -that- Styx. Missed opportunity to put more focus on female mythical figures - first of many in this work, despite many reviews praising it as “feminist.” Of course, it’s not all about Helios. We are quickly introduced to a variety of female characters as well (though, as I noted above, none of these traditionally connected to the Titanomachy despite it being a prominent aspect of the book’s background). They are all somewhat repetitive - to the point of being basically interchangeable. Circe’s mother is vain and cruel; so is Scylla. And Pasiphae. There’s no real indication of any hostility between Circe and any of her siblings in classical sources, as far as I am aware, but here it’s a central theme. The subplots pertaining to it bear an uncanny resemblance to these young adult novels in which the heroine, who is Not Like Other Girls, confronts the Chads and Stacies of the world, and I can’t shake off the feelings that it’s exactly what it is, though with superficial mythical flourish on top. I should note that Pasiphae gets a focus arc of sorts - which to my surprise somehow manages to be more sexist than the primary sources. A pretty famous tidbit repeated by many ancient authors is that Pasiphae cursed her husband Minos, regarded as unfaithful, to kill anyone else he’d have sex with with his… well, bodily fluids. Here she does it entirely  because she’s a debased sadist and not because unfaithfulness is something one can be justifiably mad about. You’d think it would be easy to put a sympathetic spin on this. But the book manages to top that in the very same chapter - can’t have Pasiphae without the Minotaur (sadly - I think virtually everything else about Pasiphae and Minos is more fun than that myth but alas) so in a brand new twist on this myth we learn that actually the infamous affair wasn’t a curse placed on Pasiphae by Poseidon or Aphrodite because of some transgression committed by Minos. She’s just wretched like that by nature. I’m frankly speechless, especially taking into account the book often goes out of its way to present deities in the worst light possible otherwise, and which as I noted reviews praise for its feminist approach - I’m not exactly sure if treating Pasiphae worse than Greek and Roman authors did counts as that.  I should note this is not the only instance of… weirdly enthusiastic references to carnal relations between gods and cattle in this book, as there’s also a weird offhand mention of Helios being the father of his own cows. This, as far as I can tell, is not present in any classical sources and truth to be told I am not a huge fan of this invention. I won’t try to think about the reason behind this addition to maintain my sanity. Pasiphae aside - the author expands on the vague backstory Circe has in classical texts which I’ve mentioned earlier. You’d expect that her island would be a gift from her father - after all many ancient sources state that he provided his children and grandchildren with extravagant gifts. However, since Helios bears little resemblance to his mythical self, Aeaea is instead a place of exile here, since Helios hates Circe and Zeus is afraid of witchcraft and demands such a solution (the same Zeus who, according to Hesiod, holds Hecate in high esteem and who appeared with her on coins reasonably commonly… but hey, licentia poetica, this idea isn’t necessarily bad in itself). Witchcraft is presented as an art exclusive to Helios’ children here - Hecate is nowhere to be found, it’s basically as if her every role in Greek mythology was surgically removed. A bit of a downer, especially since at least one text - I think Ovid’s Metarphoses? - Circe directly invokes Hecate during her confrontation with king Picus (Surprisingly absent here despite being a much more fitting antagonist for Circe than many of the characters presented as her adversaries in this novel…) Of course, we also learn about the origin of Circe’s signature spell according to ancient sources, changing people into animals. It actually takes the novel a longer while to get there, and the invented backstory boils down to Circe getting raped. Despite ancient Greek authors being rather keen on rape as plot device, to my knowledge this was never a part of any myth about Circe. Rather odd decision to put it lightly but I suppose at least there was no cattle involved this time, perhaps two times was enough for the author. Still, I can’t help but feel like much like many other ideas present in this book it seems a bit like the author’s intent is less elevating the Circe above the role of a one note witch antagonist, but rather punishing her for being that. The fact she keeps self loathing about her origin and about not being human doesn’t exactly help to shake off this feeling. This impression that the author isn’t really fond of Circe being a wacky witch only grows stronger when Odysseus enters the scene. There was already a bit of a problem before with Circe’s life revolving around love interests before - somewhat random ones at that (Dedalus during the Pasiphae arc and Hermes on and off - not sure what the inspiration for either of these was) - but it was less noticeable since it was ultimately in the background and the focus was the conflict between Circe and Helios, Pasiphae, etc. In the case of Odysseus it’s much more notable because these subplots cease to appear for a while. As a result of meeting him, Circe decides she wants to experience the joys of motherhood, which long story short eventually leads to the birth of Telegonus, who does exactly what he was famous for. The final arcs have a variety of truly baffling plot twists which didn’t really appeal to me, but which I suppose at least show a degree of creativity - better than just turning Helios’ attitude towards his children upside down for sure. Circe ends up consulting an oc character who I can only describe as “stingray Cthulhu.” His presence doesn’t really add much, and frankly it feels like yet another wasted opportunity to use Hecate, but I digress. Oh, also in another twist Athena is recast as the villain of the Odyssey. Eventually Circe gets to meet Odysseus’ family, for once interacts with another female character on positive terms (with Penelope, to be specific) and… gets together with Telemachus, which to be fair is something present in many ancient works but which feels weird here since there was a pretty long passage about Odysseus describing him as a child to Circe. I think I could live without it. Honestly having her get together with Penelope would feel considerably less weird, but there are no lesbians in the world of this novel. It would appear that the praise for Song of Achilles is connected to the portrayal of gay relationships in it. Can’t say that this applies to Circe - on this front we have an offhand mention of Hyacinth's death. which seems to serve no real purpose other than establishing otherwise irrelevant wind god is evil, and what feels like an advert for Song of Achilles courtesy of Odysseus, which takes less than one page. Eventually Circe opts to become mortal to live with Telemachus and denounces her father and… that’s it. This concludes the story of Circe. I don’t exactly think the original is the deepest or greatest character in classical literature, but I must admit I’d rather read about her wacky witch adventures than about Miller’s Circe. A few small notes I couldn’t fit elsewhere: something very minor that bothered me a lot but that to be honest I don’t think most readers will notice is the extremely chaotic approach to occasional references to the world outside Greece - Sumer is randomly mentioned… chronologically after Babylon and Assyria, and in relation to Persians (or rather - to Perses living among them). At the time we can speak of “Persians” Sumerian was a dead language at best understood by a few literati in the former great cities of Mesopotamia so this is about the same as if a novel about Mesopotamia mentioned Macedonians and then completely randomly Minoans at a chronologically later point. Miller additionally either confused or conflated Perses, son of Perseus, who was viewed positively and associated with Persia (so positively that Xerxes purportedly tried to use it for propaganda purposes!) with Perses the obscure brother of Circe et. al, who is a villain in an equally obscure myth casting Medea as the heroine, in which he rules over “Tauric Chersonese,” the Greek name of a part of Crimea. I am honestly uncertain why was he even there as he amounts to nothing in the book, and there are more prominent minor children of Helios who get no mention (like Aix or Phaeton) so it’s hard to argue it was for the sake of completion. Medea evidently doesn’t triumph over him offscreen which is his sole mythical purpose. Is there something I liked? Well, I’m pretty happy Selene only spoke twice, considering it’s in all due likeness all that spared her from the fate of receiving similarly “amazing” new characterization as her brother. As is, she was… okay. Overall I am definitely not a fan of the book. As for its purported ideological value? It certainly has a female main character. Said character sure does have many experiences which are associated with women. However, I can’t help but think that the novel isn’t exactly feminist - it certainly focuses on Circe, but does it really try to “rehabilitate” her? And is it really “rehabilitation” and feminist reinterpretation when almost every single female character in the book is the same, and arguably depicted with even less compassion than in the source material?  It instead felt like the author’s goal is take away any joy and grandeur present in myths, and to deprive Circe of most of what actually makes her Circe. We don’t need to make myths joyless to make them fit for a new era. It’s okay for female characters to be wacky one off villains and there’s no need to punish them for it. A book which celebrates Circe for who she actually is in the Odyssey and in other Greek sources - an unapologetic and honestly pretty funny character -  would feel much more feminist to me that a book where she is a wacky witch not because she feels like it but because she got raped, if you ask me. 

Circe evidently having the time of her life, by Edmund Dulac (public domain)

[veebs-hates-video-games]

In today's adventures in trying the last few random games I have on my 3DS because I was tired and bored because breathing is hard, I have learned:

HarmoKnight, a rhythm game made by Game Freak, is pretty good. Who knew they occasionally did stuff that's not Pokemon?

Stella Glow, a SRPG by the same people who made the Black Rock Shooter game, is both weirder and better than I expected. Although even though everything in it has been wholesome so far I can't help getting a vibe from it that at any moment it's going to ruin that with some sort of creepy and/or misogynist Anime Bullshit.

Shin Megami Tensei 4 is one of the most deliberate games I've played in a long time, like even just the timing of things in cutscenes feels very purposeful and sets the weird mood of it, and the setting is a lot more interesting than I expected. But also the difficulty is absolutely ridiculous and well into the "not fun or even fair" range, which unless there's a way to turn it way down will mean I'm not going to play much more. Like it's not just that I need to make better decisions about what I do, it's that I don't even have the information I need to make those decisions and both I and the enemies die in one or two hits, so it's just RNG and luck at this point as far as I can tell.

Also I did guess correctly why Horizon Zero Dawn was running so badly (after uninstalling it, which meant I got to wait to download 70 GB again...), and changing that one setting outside the game made it immediately jump from like 17 fps to 60. After a few hours of that one I'm pretty confident saying it's the best game out of anything I've mentioned in this post, but also I haven't touched it in a couple days because when it's hot or the air is otherwise bad running my computer at full power makes things enough worse that it's not worth it. At least the Switch and 3DS only use a few watts each, so those keep me company pretty well on those days.

Oh right, speaking of the Switch, I did play through the Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes demo too, or at least one route. I kinda hate the way it's structured and am kinda worried it's going to pull a Warriors All-Stars and make it so you have to do multiple separate playthroughs to see everything and won't let you just unlock everything on a single save file, at least not without NG+. Also kinda disappointing that it doesn't actually run any better than Age of Calamity did.

Aside from that it seems like it has a lot of potential though. Shez and Arval are great. After like an hour I was like Byleth who? Thank you for a fun protagonist with an actual personality again. And just like with BotW and AoC, I feel like the voice acting in FEW3H improves on the original somewhat. And of course the huge amount of flexibility in the combat and building characters could get really interesting. It doesn't feel as good to me so far as AoC did, but the endless possibilities for customizing characters has so much potential for silly shenanigans. I've already seen a video of someone running Lysithea in full platemail with an axe, and I'm full of Bad Ideas.

[eirikrjs]

what do you think is the best smt game to start with? not necessarily the highest quality but the one that gives you the best introduction to the franchise

I was just lamenting the other day that Shin Megami Tensei 1 should be the best place to start because it being the progenitor means everything iterates off of it and therefore it provides a great foundation for anyone new. However, Atlus is stupid and hasn’t modernized the game and made it available on current platforms. Every other game released in English is of course perfectly playable to anyone but each has some caveats that prevent them from being fully starter friendly. Let’s check off the available main series games: 

Nocturne: We missed out on the context SMT1 and SMT2 provided to show that Nocturne was intentionally trying to shake up the formula. Rewards completion of sloppily-conceived but fun and substantial re-release edition content over main themes of the OG release (which we also never got). This “edgy” anti-theming then became the context for SMT for long after. For these reasons I really think Nocturne is a bad place to start, but it was my own start, so...

Strange Journey: The DS version might be the best way released in English to introduce yourself to SMT. A straightforward narrative that teaches you the basics of SMT conflict. Proves that Tokyo doesn't actually matter. However, it’s a dungeon crawler and one that is sadistic at times so you may already need to like that kind of game to enjoy it.

Shin Megami Tensei IV: A great environment and a scenario with lots of potential squandered by poor writing, the Achilles’ heel of modern RPGs. New demon art is not just bad, it is expressly anti-SMT and generic. The solid mechanics make it a commonly-seen rec for starters. It is a fun game and may be the best rec after SJ if you don’t think too hard about the narrative or consider what you see to be definitive.

Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse: Its writing makes SMT4′s look good. Was intended to appeal to a slightly younger demographic of early teens and it shows. Its refined SMT4 gameplay might be the best in the series. If you can skip all the dialogue and make up your own story based on what little you see, it becomes an excellent SMT simulator.

Strange Journey Redux: It has the Nocturne problem of largely bad and poorly written re-release material intruding on and incentivizing itself over the original. Gameplay and dungeon navigation have been improved. I haven’t personally played this version but my heart still says to go for the original over this.

Then the spinoff games, which are sometimes recommended to newcomers:

Devil Survivor 1/Overclocked: This one (especially the Overclocked re-release) is a darling in some circles. At best it does have above-average writing (and a scenario that remixes SMT1) but there’s just too much of it that doesn’t advance the plot or characters. While it has grid-based map combat like any brand of Tactics game, it is rarely strategic as enemies usually take the battle to you. These games also feature the amateurish character art of Suzuhito Yasuda, a man so horny he seemingly draws only to please himself and I really think its low quality takes something away from the game. Very mixed on the game as a whole.

Devil Survivor 2/Record Breaker: Not a good starter, especially compared to the first game. Writing is atrocious and full of anime cliches. Has a great demon roster is the best I can say about it.

Digital Devil Saga 1/2: Great story and characters in this rare-for-the-series directly continuous narrative, but both games suffer from a high encounter rate (which can be lowered eventually), large costs for essential skill upgrades that encourage grinding, and loooong dungeons in between story beats. Uses Nocturne’s Press Turn system so the gameplay is solid. Its linear story and character focus completely eschew the series’ alignments and demon mechanics so it’s not a great way to learn about SMT itself. Honestly, you might be better off waiting for an inevitable DDS duology remaster.

Raidou Kuzunoha (Soulless Army): The first Raidou game is a mediocre action RPG set on prerendered backgrounds that always do their best to make the combat seem even less fluid. This is the only Raidou game with anything approaching an interesting story..., well, maybe the scenario is more interesting than the story itself. Again, a bad starter because the most interesting narrative bits are for veteran players and for the half-baked combat.

Raidou Kuzunoha (King Abbadon): The action combat is much improved and slightly more dynamic enough to be passable. Good thing because the story is somehow completely unappealing, from most angles. The entire appeal of the Raidou games seems to be in proportion to how cool you think the main character design is. I personally don’t get it.

Soul Hackers: A game that succeeds at all the basics: presentation, narrative, gameplay. Like SJ, this is a spinoff of the old mold and is a dungeon crawler (albeit one that’s far simpler) and, amazingly, the 3DS version features gameplay improvements and toggle-able features (some of which are basically in-game cheats) without modern story additions. Battles are extremely basic turn-based affairs, for better or worse. Has an excellent ‘90s cyberpunk atmosphere, the characters aren’t overwritten for better or worse, and the plot has plenty of what can be called “SMT moments.” If you can move past the lack of modern niceties and polish, it’s a great little game.

I really do care a lot about writing and presentation, especially internal consistency for the former and coordination for the latter. For too many of these games I’ve tapped out of what I’m seeing on the screen and default to the gameplay to keep me interested until the end. Life is too short for bad art.

But if you’re totally new, here’s a recommended starting order of the games available to easily purchase digitally/emulate:

Strange Journey (DS) or Shin Megami Tensei IV

SMT: Nocturne (HD coming in May)

Soul Hackers

Strange Journey is a good teacher of what the series is about but if it’s not to your liking, Shin Megami Tensei IV is the acceptable substitute teacher that bungled the lesson plan but at least makes attempts to sound informed, something most others don’t do. Nocturne is great but don’t make it your first. Have fun!

[repentantsky]

5 Franchises That Should be more Popular

Hello, I talk about games a lot, and while I always seem to mention at least one or two series on my lists that aren’t the most well known, I haven’t yet made a list comprised entirely of less popular than they deserve to be titles, so I thought I should maybe do that. No, the irony of a damn near nobody talking about video games that should be more in the public eye isn’t lost on me, but I like a lot of things that aren’t as popular as they should be, so at the risk of making a list that falls completely into the void, here are 5 game franchises that should be more well known. 

5. Yo-Kai Watch. 

We’re starting off with a kid’s game, don’t worry, I swear it will get better for those looking for some of their favorites, or at least I hope, but Yo-Kai Watch as a series is truly fantastic. Not only had it at one point managed to out-popular Pokemon in Japan, and for good reason, that reason being it actually took place is town’s that look like Japan, and the cultural references everywhere make it a joy of a series to play, but there’s a dang good lot of content in these games. While the base games will probably only run you about 25 to 30 hours, which is not long for an RPG, their bonus content, and the collection aspect, will give you more to do than Pokemon. Extra dungeons, stronger versions of the final bosses, and the ability to grind your favorite Yo-kai, and there are a lot of cool designs, was and still is, far more enjoyable than most other games of it’s kind have ever been, and to top it all off, it’s actually pretty funny, which is rare for games to do. The charm of Level 5′s games is also on full display here, and oh man, the whole series is just a treat, and we really need to have Level 5 properly back in the West. 

4. Naruto games.

Now wait, I hear you saying, Naruto games are all really popular, the whole series only barely lost out to One Piece for several years, but no, you’re not right in that assessment, the only games in the series that reached true high level success were it’s leading 2D fighting games, and the series has a lot more to offer than that. Ever heard of Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Impact? What about The Path of the Ninja 1 and 2, what about Kizuna Drive, or the entire list of exclusive Naruto RPG’s in Japan? Yes, that’s right, I’m talking about handheld Naruto games. Did you know there were actually a whole ton of them, and they varied in genre’s from RPG’s, is side scrollers, to Beat’em ups, and yes, even fighting games, some of which were not just ports of the console versions. Naruto’s handheld adventures obviously did something for the series, or there wouldn’t have been so many as there are, but none of them reached the hype and the Ultimate Ninja Storm series, even if they were just as good, if not better, and it’s honestly sad. Naruto got a lot of out of it’s fans, and it still does even now, but it could have done so much better if only those handhelds had reached the numbers they deserve. 

3. The Asphalt series. 

It’s not often that I talk about racing games, but I do like a number of them, and my favorite that I swear I’ve never seen a sole talk about, is Asphalt. They aren’t the best games ever, but they do what most racing games should do, they come at you fast, with great cars to race, and they are also the only series of racers I’ve ever played a handheld version of that didn’t have me crying in pain because how awkward they were to on a handheld device, seriously have you ever played Mario Kart 7 for more than an hour? Never again I promise you. But seriously, the Asphalt series is a lot of fun. My favorite are the Urban GT games, but if whatever reason you can’t play those, 3D and Injection are also a lot of fun, and while the series doesn’t reinvent the wheel, and yes I understand how that joke will be taken by many, it’s still just a series you can sit down and enjoy without getting cramps. Seems like a series that’s underrated to me. 

2. Shin Megami Tensei

Some people after playing Persona 5/Royal and now possibly Strikers, are apparently super hyped for Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne, and that’s great, it really is, but the problem is most of those people only aware of mainline SMT, and have either never experienced it, or are have only played something like SMTIV Apocalypse, which is a great game, but also an incredibly easy one. I hope you all enjoy finding out how hard the series can be. The SMT name, which has been dragged around a lot in the West since it’s more notable to Western fans, has several spin-offs, including just Shin Megami, The Last Bible, Majin Tensei, Devil Children and Devil Summoner. To be fair, a number of those games, or entire series, haven’t come to the west, and several are left on old platforms, I mean who collects for Macintosh these days, but that’s the problem. If the series was as popular as it deserved to be, we’d be getting those games on more modern platforms, and people who think they are hyped for May 25th in the west, might already know what they’re getting into. SMT has been around since 1987, that’s 34 flipping years if you can believe it, and the series has never gotten to the level of popularity it deserves. Persona being it’s most popular spin-off helps, but we’ll have to wait and see if the hype this year, really translates to what the franchise is long overdue for. 

1. The Legend of Heroes. 

You know ones series I really like, it’s Kingdom Hearts, and if you’re wondering why that matters, you probably haven’t played a Legend of Heroes game before. The series has become over the years, similar to Kingdom Hearts in one very specific way, that being that it’s all about over-arching stories, and every sequel mattering. It is true that not every game is connected, there are five previous entries that are two games long, and three games long as their own series respectively, but the franchise is turning 30 years old next year at least for the West, and it’s shameful that we still don’t have three of the games from the mainline releases, and neither of the two spin-offs that weren’t gatcha games, both of which are fantastic if you play them in their original Japanese with fan subtitles. Most of the Trails series can be found on Steam, which is great, accept that two crucial games are missing, because the series isn’t seen to be as important as it is. I love games with continued stories, and as far as I’m concerned, The Legend of Heroes Trails series is absolutely the best of them all, because it takes it’s time developing all of it’s characters and it wait it avoids trying to create hype moments for fans just for the sake of it. It can be a slow burner of a series at times, which can turn some people away from it, but man when it goes, it goes so much harder than almost everything else, that it’s a massive shocker that it’s not more popular. Sure, it’s not visually all that impressive, even when it first becomes 3D, but if you can get past the looks, it truly is something to marvel at. 

And that’s my list. Did I miss anything that you think it underrated? Let me know in the notes below, reblog this list if interested you, and have a wonderful day.    

[gamearamamegathons]

Megami Tensei: Yes, I Am Sure About This

Circe here. Okay. Here we go. Let's begin playing the first game in the Shin Megami Tensei seri -- actually, before we do that. Maybe it would be worth giving a bit of context. Where did this thing come from, anyway? So, believe it or not, the first game is based on a horror novel of the same name. It's basically about a high school student who can summon demons with a computer (I guess that's what makes it a "digital devil story"). The protagonists of the game are ostensibly the characters from the novel, but really, the connection is pretty loose. The main thing we need to know is that we've got a cool demon-summoning computer and we're going through this dungeon fighting and recruiting demons. The part about recruiting the demons is, of course, going to be a pretty important gameplay conceit, and something that resonates throughout the entire series, all the way up to the modern iterations like Persona 5. For now it's much more modest, and, uh, clunky, but really, we're barely even there yet, so let's take a couple steps back and talk about the experience of trying to get started playing this game.

So, honestly, the first couple hours were spent trying to find new mapping software. Ogmo Editor allowed me to create basically perfect replicas of Dragon Quest maps, but it's fragile and kind of a pain to use, and I wanted to find something that just kinda did what I wanted without fuss. Since Megami Tensei is a first person dungeon crawler, some robust form of hand-mapping is necessary, and I just can't bring myself to bust out the graph paper after what I went through hand-drawing the DQ1 and 2 maps. So I settled on the basic version of Grid Cartographer, which required me to spring for 20 bucks, but god, it's everything I ever wanted, it's perfect, and at last making video game maps is fun again.

Okay, we're all good. We can start the game now, right? Well, maybe. The first thing you're presented with when you start the game is a stat allocation screen. What's that? You have no idea how to play the game or what stats are relevant? Too bad, sucker, this is an NES RPG, better get used to opaque and confusing mechanics. My first attempt at the game was basically a dry run because I barely knew what I was doing and didn't really allocate my stats correctly. It turns out that Nakajima, our male protagonist, can't learn magic and never will. So basically we just wanna pump his physical stats. Our second character, Yumiko, does learn magic, so we want to give her good magic stats. Fairly basic stuff, if you just went ahead and assumed that the male character is the fighter and the female character is the caster (grumble).

Okay, so now we can get started. We begin on the 8th floor of the Tower of Daedalus and we're going to be making our way down. This top floor is basically the town and our safe haven, where healing and shops and stuff is. Of course, I had to map it out to even learn that, since it looks identical to every other floor of the dungeon. From here, we learn a few things pretty quickly. First of all, healing costs money, and you get money by defeating monsters. So I guess if you run out of cash you've essentially softlocked the game. Good, excellent, love it. By the way, we're in an NES RPG, so by "get started" I mean "go one floor down and walk in circles until I'm strong enough to not get mauled by gnomes and bipedal fish". At least Yumiko learns a healing spell, which does reduce the chances of going broke.

There's other stuff I could go into, like moon phases, which affect monsters in some way, or the actual recruiting and summoning process, but demons are prohibitively expensive to summon at this stage, so really, my experience of the game so far has been walking in circles, hoping I don't render the game unwinnable almost immediately by running out of money, and reflecting deeply on whether this is really what I want to do with my spare time. And that's pretty much been my progress thus far. Now, you might say, it sounds as if I've accomplished precisely nothing so far. And you'd be right! But I think this is probably the most honest way to start talking about this game: by explaining that you really can't just dive into a game this old and opaque without immediately screwing yourself. As far as accessibility goes, dungeon crawlers were probably close to the bottom, in an era of gaming that was already, well, just a bit thorny, on account of still figuring out a lot of the design principles we take for granted today. Hopefully, with mapping software and a bit of input from guides, I can find a path forward that ends with me dragging myself over the finish line before outdated RPG design and my own impatience beach my unfortunate player avatar. I suppose if I can't finish this game I might end up calling it good enough if I played to the natural endpoint where progress becomes impossible or just prohibitively obnoxious. We'll see how it ends up.

[riizev2]

What’s the one thing you dislike about the roleplaying community on Tumblr?Where do you draw your inspiration from?

What’s the one thing I dislike about the roleplaying community on Tumblr?

I can assure you, I dislike more than one thing about the Tumblr roleplay community for WrA. Out of fairness and avoiding this turning into a rant, I will say that my biggest complaint is that Tumblr’s internal mechanics that favor engagement means that if you don’t have a guild or dedicated group circulating your work then you’re going to get buried. It feels like you are just dropping your posts into oblivion because Tumblr decided that you weren’t important enough to promote. This is doubly frustrating because I have met people who don’t think you’re a ‘real roleplayer’ unless you also have a social media presence for your characters and honestly? Being told that I have to do all this extra work just for people to treat you with at least a little common courtesy is exhausting.

Where do I draw my inspiration from?

A little bit of everything. I have a habit to make new characters because of the One (1) thing that has my attention in that moment and then, when that fixation has passed, rework my characters or build them around my new fixation. My current fixations are Shin Megami Tensei and The Magnus Archives which probably explains a lot lmao

[translationandbetrayals]

Persona 4: A recommendation for your holidays

I’m happy, a Little late to say this, but i’m happy, because not a long time ago (specifically the 13rd of june of this year) ATLUS decided to port the famous Persona 4 Golden to Steam, to be played on PC, and if you don’t know what i’m talking about, let me explain it.

Persona 4 Golden is, “chronologically”, the fourth game of the Persona franchise, who is, in turn, a spin-off of the Shin Megami Tensei franchise, but, what are they about?, to explain it in a simple way, the SMT (Shin Megami Tensei) games usually putt he player in a post-apocalyptic world, where you need to fight demons with the help of your Persona (who are basically stands of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure), and the Persona games put the player in our current world and tries to criticize our society in different ways, in addition to dealing with other sensitive issues, for example, in Persona 3, the player summons his Personas shooting himself in the head with a pistol, the whole games deals with the idea of a depressed society and people’s suicide, Persona 5 deals with the evil of the people, and what they are willing to do to get what they want, and the protagonists manage to “steal their hearts”, and Persona 4 deals with prejudice and how we show a false image to society, being this, many times, completely different from how we really want to be, they deal with homoexuality (maybe not very well), deprresion, freedom of ourselves and many other things.

So, what makes this game so special?, the reason it’s simple, in all the Persona games you can control a variety of adolescents who had their own personalities (except from your character, you give him your own persoanlity), and for me, Persona 4 has the best group of characters of all the games, i laughed a lot in the almost 70 hours that i’ve played the game and im not even in the half of the game, like every other RPG you can fight enemies to earn money and experience to become stronger, but this goes to a second place because, when you’re not in the “other world” (to not make spoilers), you are being a student and an adolescent, and you have to do what an adolescent do, study, hangout with firends, work, etc, this is to give life to the part of role play and plays a very important role in the combat system, another aspect of the game it’s the OST (Original SoundTrack), it’s beautiful, and it also have anime scenes to tell parts of the history.

If you have a PC who can run this game (almost every PC of the last years, because is a porto f a PS2 game) i recommend you to play it, is a Good game and a perfect introduction to the Persona and the SMT saga, you will have at least 90 hours of game so i think it’s worth the $12.000 CLP that costs in steam (and by $15.000 CLP you can have the game, the digital artbook and the digital OST), and if you can afford it, you can always look for the game to download it free on internet. Oh, and it also have and anime if you don't want to play the 90 hours to know the story of it.

Luis Manriquez Reyes.

[shadowtarot]

Shad Rambles About: Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE

I guess since I’m on this topic, I can share my thoughts of the game given it’s...sorta a Persona game? Granted I beat the game back in 2016 so a lot of my memories about later parts are hazy but I will note that TMS’s character writing is super close to how Persona’s character writing is. I remember that back when we finally got to see the game in action, how dismayed some people were to TMS not truly being the crossover people were hoping for, with it taking more from Persona than from Shin Megami Tensei and having the idol theme mixed in as well. But as a newbie to SMT at the time, I was really excited to finally get a game that wasn’t gonna sell out that fast or be hard to find.

 But uh, back to the character thing. Coming back to TMS after playing Persona 5, the whole Idol concept and how weird it is isn’t that big of a deal really. Sure the idol thing is more in your face but it’s all in good fun. And the characters in the game are very much written to the same formula that Persona characters are, Arcana traits included. Even though the arcana system doesn’t exist in this game. You have your aloof protagonist, the passionate girl, the hot headed best friend, the female sempai, hermit, maternal figure, ....the Emperor arcana, ect ect. 

Alas there is no English dub, of course as we all know but the game doesn’t lose charm for not having it. Do I recommend it? Yeah, but it’s not nearly as gripping of a narrative as Persona is so you’d mostly be playing it for the fun gameplay.  Of course it is on the Wii U which while I love to death personally due to a bunch of games I own for it being really good, it is an out of print game console. But this game is definitely a good example of how Atlus does games where they don’t dub it into English. So for those of you worried about PQ2, I’d suggest at least looking up an LP of this one to see if you can deal with it. As a note however, in TMS, the whole party talks when it’s their turn, when they attack, ect and there are no subtitles during battle, so get used to not knowing what Itsuki is saying half the time.

[playchoicesconfessions]

I decided to make this a separate text post because i have a lot to say and a lot of tea to spill. So i need the read more.

Imma spill the tea right now and remember these are all OPINIONS and people are bound to get BUTTHURT. You can agree or disagree with me I couldn’t care less. I just need to let free of those things that I’m holding in before going on break.☕☕☕☕☕

I personally really enjoy it and don’t get much of the bitching around tbh? And this is coming from someone who doesn't really like sci-fi too much.

The LIs look amazing ( although Titania is bugging me the wrong way and Meridian’s arms are far too bloated. This aint a swimming aid). Even the ones of the siblings.

Moving on, I do not really get the comparison to RoE??? Except that the main characters has siblings tbh. I expected it to be more like Endless Summer (without tons of stuff to buy or relationship meter) or TcaTf and so far my expectations has not been proved wrong at all. The plot finally settled in lately and I can expect a train of feels to rush over the next few chapters.

I think the reason why people are complaining so much about it is because they expect it to be like your general romance story. The book is not introduce Li -> romantic scene with them -> introduce next 2 LI -> Event -> romantic scene and rinse and repeat. This book follows a clear story line and sets the romance on the back burner. I’m pretty sure if TCaTF would have been released right now it would face the same criticism tbh. About it be RoE like because you can also control Dom etc…

This is what I love personally. I’m not that big on romance stories so having a more adventure style is amazing. Now before you come and say “why are you playing choices then???” Well Hon, this is Choices STORIES You Play, not Choices romance you play or Choices pixels you fuck

Back to where I was, I love it even more since it has a morality meter. I love these in games especially when they severely alter gameplay and stories like in your usual Shin Megami Tensei games. But knowing choices, the alterations would be very minor if not that would mean the writers would have to make 3 chapters a week as opposed as one. Plus keeping the choices super drastic will make it hard to get a sequel book to it because the writers would have to write again 3 chapters per week and ATV2 will be essentially 3 books.

I also get the complaints that MC does not get much to act and we get to play as the siblings more. First of all I find this questionable but mind you i haven’t counted the scenes. Anyway I’m pretty sure MC has more scenes but the thing is, they are just not as remarkable as those with Pax and Eos. You are just so used your regular cut of mill MC that they no longer feel special and rhe scenes with the siblings feel different. They might not let you feel awe constantly but they amek you feel something else and you have to adapt to fit the new perspective you are playing as.

Now the Zekei thing… I actually think if you love Zekei that is actually an amazing situation you are in because think of it. You will be basically getting 2x more Zekei scenes if you romance him both on MC and Eos. Remember that you are the one controlling both of them, it is not like there js another person beside you and the two of you are in competition to win Zekei’s heart. And if you do not want X to romance him, just don’t romance him. No need to be cry babies and claim Y stole your man when you are clearly the one that led up to these actions 🤷‍♀️

Now Pax and Eos themselves…These characters are definitely flawed but thing is … I remember people asking PB for more morally grey and flawed MCs. Now you get them and just diss them out??? Conclusion : you ain’t really for morally grey characters and should try not asking for stuff you can’t handle. I think playing as them is actually a good thing to be honest. I’m 100000% sure that eventually the family will separate as Eos goes complete Vanguard and Pax goes Jura. The different perspective during the war will help lean the players to either side and also pull the strings of the player as they will be opposing the siblings’ own blood. Unfortunately I can’t really explain what I mean through words so I’m just going to summarize it by this:

ATV is definitely neither a romance or adventure book and sci-fi is just the setting. The true nature of Across The Void is a familial tragedy imo and it will shine if it continues delivering in that essence.

This is an entirely new genre PB is going for and a really interesting one and I sure hope they go in that angle. If they do continue like that it might actually end up at my favorite choices book and trust me, I love ILITW so much that there are barely any books that come close to it to me.

However, I won’t deny it. ATV does have glaring weaknesses. Namely:

1.Too many shades of purple. Purple is a beautiful colour but in such excess it feels a bit nauseating.

2.Eos X Lyra is a car crash that will be really hard to salvage. It is super cringy. I’ll be doing anything in my power to avoid it. Eos X Zekei is super fluid and natural though and I’m really liking it.

3.Labelling your twins as annoying. This is bad marketing. Naming people that the users are going to play as annoying gives people a bad foretaste and will obviously affect their future experience with them. I think if they didn’t call the twins annoying, people would approve of them more. But Pb already seeded the annoying mindset in people’s mind and so it because hard for some to enjoy them because of it.

4.I’m probably going to get a lot of flame for it but Titania. I’m not really liking her and her design to be honest. Like one of our previous confessions said her appearance is very strange, even for the book she is in. Plus she is giving me Drake vibes (minus the whiskey) who is someone I do not really approve of.

5.Too much going on!!!! This time I’m not talking about plot wise, this time I’m talking about content. You have 4 Lis ( possibly 5 if Zekei is available to MC too) to give time to for MC. Plus each sibling I’m guessing has at least two. I’m guessing Zania and Holmes for Pax and Zekei and Lyra for Eos. You have the robot and bartender sub romance going on. Passenger and Crew Management. Moral Alignment. Huge story that requires a lot of time to properly bloom. Eventual sex with LI option that probably 60% of you have been lusting for. There is just too much to fit in just 1 book! And repeating what I said far above, with the Moral Alignment thing, it will be hard to get a sequel. The book is already at its 6th or 6th chapter. If they intend to wrap everything up in this book we will end up with probably a 35 chapter book and thats just redundant by choices standards. I think the highest amount of chapters a book has is 22 i think with RoE2 and any book with 20+ chapters feels too long so yeah.

6.Also talking about Zania she should have already got a proper introduction when we are using Pax because the gears of the plot are already turning unless they want it to be a super slow burn but that would be a bit redundant considering how she is after Pax based om the chapter in which she is introduced.

7.The most glaring weakness though had to be the lack of lore and background information. We are thrust into a fictitious world with no information about it will alienate the player (no pun intended) and make them less likely to be engaged. No background information worked in the case of endless summer as the cast also didn’t know about what was going on. Noth the player and the characters understood what was happening at the same time. One way they could have set it up is that …. Do you guys remember the Sol, Kepler etc… teasers? Well instead of showcasing the LIs they should have posted lore bits. Like say for the Devinee (did I write this right? Its the tree people). They make an image with Lyra, or any other devinee on it and explain the race, their characteristics and tid bits about their planets. They could even go further and add another button, just like the one for the closet that would bring you to another menu where they would have all this information plus other general important ones like what exactly are the Vanguard and Juras. Why the war is exactly happening. Artemis and her company and stuff and get even more background information as we complete more options. Plus if PB wanted money they could even monetize them like they did in ILITW with Mr.Red’s origin stories that you got from the crow. It is entirely optional and not need to understand what is going on but is still interesting and puts things under a different microscope.

Anyway thats all I had to say. Again it is all my OPINION you are very welcome to disagree. I won’t be replying to anything so if you intend to attack me and stuff well then, congratulations you lost 5 minutes losing your shit and attacking me. Now I’m going on break, see you guys when I’m back. I’m sure I’ll have an amazing break since i emptied my trash!

thank you for sending this question @choices-addicted by the way!

-Mod Frosty

[megatentious]

Shin Megami Tensei 3 Nocturne is still incredible

I just finished a replay of Shin Megami Tensei 3 for the first time in a decade, so I felt compelled to write a big long unstructured essay about it where I’m going to sound like an overwrought crazy person. That’s okay though. There’s just something about this game that really speaks to those of us who find our way in. When you sound like a hyperbolic cultist writing soaring prose to try to meet the game at its level, it’s not a unique reaction. We’ve all been spellbound in the same way, the game is designed to do it. How is it designed to do this? Basically, in every conceivable way! The music and sound composition, the moment-to-moment battling, the environmental art and location choices, the progression systems for both the protagonist and demon fusions, the scope and method of storytelling, the density and depth of the mythological references, everything fits together like a symphony to inspire these feelings. Tension, immersion (lol), and utter absorption. Nocturne is a clinic in how to structure every aspect of your game around a unified vision (finding the strength to survive in a cruel and barren land) without hugely compromising ambition. That this level of design can be sustained over the course of 50 hours for the average playthrough and 70 for those of us determined to reach the lowest depths of the game’s enormous optional (!) Amala dungeon is insanely remarkable. Some of the more adolescent fans of the Shin Megami Tensei series and the broader Megaten franchise lionize this one in particular as being the most “dark” but that’s a kind of stupid and narrow way of looking at it. If you’re a cool person you don’t love Nocturne because it’s “dark” you love it because the game makes you feel like you’re hallucinating. SMT3 is unconcerned with providing detailed exposition and light-hearted character moments, but it’s a game that is overrun with “story” at every turn. And not just in the environmental, piece-it-together Souls series storytelling sense people love to talk about, there are actually a bunch more NPCs around straight up delivering dialogue for you than you’d think! Pair that up with the demon chatting, the compendium entries, the audiovisual cues and the gorgeously directed cutscenes, and the common complaint that SMT3 has no story just seems like nonsense to me. The game isn’t necessarily just dour or unambiguously somber either. Megami Tensei’s roots are in the pulpy trash of 80s light novels, and you see this in some of the humorous demon-focused crassness, the bits of comedic negotiation dialogue, and the seeming mish-mash of myth as aesthetic influences. But the funny paradox of SMT3 is that it’s a game built on a punk-rock foundation of rebelling against what’s proper and mainstream (see any interview with the creators) that is also simultaneously downright austere by today’s standards. Grand and lonely and visionary in tone, careful, measured and meticulous in its design, without an ounce of bloat, nothing wasted or incoherent, it’s just so impressive on every level (I promise I’ll get more specific with my gushing soon). There’s an attitude among some Megaten fans that Nocturne is the one that doesn’t fit in the series, that it’s too different from previous Shin Megami Tensei games, but I don’t think that’s right. To me there’s a very clear throughline, it’s just Nocturne’s antecedents aren’t necessarily found in its immediate numbered predecessor. When it comes to the main and numbered games in this series, you can very easily see the path from Megami Tensei 2 -> Shin Megami Tensei 2 -> Shin Megami Tensei 4, all of which begin years after the apocalypse has occurred and concern themselves with how society persists and political factions collide decades and even centuries into the aftermath. They are the three most readily described as “cyberpunk”, they’re chattier, they’re a bit more clichéd in their own ways (amnesiac gladiator and military academy recruit openings for SMT2 and SMT4 respectively), they let you use guns and their general sensibilities are similar.  

SMT3’s lineage is, I feel, more directly traced from two other games. SMT1 and (hear me out!) Revelations: Persona. I think it’s easy to link these three games together for several reasons. In all three you begin in relative peace in a current day city, in all three the inciting incident is an occultist ritual, and interestingly in all three the hospital is your first dungeon, deliberately chosen for its uncanny familiarity to create an immediate sense of unease (and also the pretty obvious birth/death location symbolism). These are games centered around the immediacy of disaster and apocalypse, and take modern day locations that are meant to be familiar and subvert them to make them unnerving. Atmosphere is a word I see frequently used to praise all three games (yes there are at least 1 dozens of us, [dozens!] who like Persona 1) and the dream-like, surreal atmosphere in these three games can be strikingly similar. 

So yeah, good lord, Nocturne’s atmosphere. This game is simply filled with astonishing imagery at every point. The art directors managed to make each scene feel somehow weighty and mesmerizing, with aesthetic choices made throughout that are just so thoughtful and cultured. Angels and demons look terrifying and awesome, in that they inspire terror and awe. Gods and goddesses appear benevolent, their facial expressions neutral and lacking in human emotion. Jack Frost remains the best mascot in videogames. There’s well-researched details in the animations and all aspects of appearance (see here for a bit on Baphomet’s posing). The vocal and sonic choices are perfect, like that unsettling blaring soundblast when the statue of Gozu-Tennoh speaks, as if a great and mighty terror is deigning to communicate across worlds.

There are posts that dissect the spiral imagery of the vortex world that repeats over the course of the game. There are entire sites devoted to breaking down the wide range of inspirations for the game's transcendental demon design. Random tumblr people compare the cutscene direction to Ingmar Bergman films, and it’s interesting to see how the cutscenes are frequently in first person or otherwise hide the protagonist, which not only hearkens back to series roots (while saving budget $$$) but also conveys solitude and makes the scenes with multiple demons and figures appear that much more spectacular. On any given day you’ll find a tweet or two or three of people overwhelmed by the game’s aesthetic choices, its virtuoso game over sequence, or title sequence, or pretty much any sequence. It’s the purest expression of a world class artist’s singular vision and is the reason why all of us sound so annoying whining for Kazuma Kaneko to return from his flower field exile.

There’s also a very ingenious way SMT3 supports its themes and that is through the combat. Nocturne is a game about stealing turns. It’s the fundamental principle of the battling, it’s why everyone tells you to keep the skill Fog Breath, and it’s a carryover from the simpler system in SMT1 where the method of stealing turns was using charm bullets or casting Zio to paralyze the enemy before they even have a chance to act. The battle system has a famous Engrish name called “Press Turn,” which is distinct and not to be confused with the One More system from newer Persona games or the alignment based combat bonuses of Strange Journey.

In SMT3, any given press turn encounter depends upon the party composition choices you’ve made, not only the resistances and repels/drains you enter with (two very different things in terms of battle consequences!) but also the moment to moment decision-making of turn management, weighing how to strategically pass to maximize damage output over the course of the fight. Every battle is an opportunity to demonstrate your efficiency and mastery of the systems, and the goal of each encounter is to use foresight and preparation to demolish your foes before they have the chance to even act. Steal turns and survive in a barren land of death upon death, this is the elegance of Press Turn. You’ll hear endless discussion around this game’s difficulty, and encounters generally have teeth to them yeah, but there is a very principled fairness to the battling where combat swings do not occur as dramatically as they do in say, SMT4. SMT3 is balanced perfectly by virtue of its lack of save anywhere option, providing you with tension at all times but also most importantly the tools to mitigate disaster over the long term, which is a deeply deeply rewarding way to survive.

Press Turn’s UI really adds to this rewarding feeling.  How terrifying is it when a boss casts Beast or Dragon Eye, and suddenly a string of new turn icons appear? How satisfying is it to see a row of flashing turns, knowing that you’ve fully exploited your enemy? The enemy composition really accentuates this as well, with encounters often designed to avoid easy spam of single elements or physical skills to mindlessly coast to victory. SMT3 doesn’t want you taking any shortcuts, if you want to take advantage of a given demon or magatama’s skillset, you need to pair your choices to mitigate the corresponding weakness, or the enemy’s AI will press their advantage in the exact way you would. It’s a really satisfying symmetry.

There are also other paths to battle that are just as viable. Exploiting weaknesses with a multipurpose magic build is another way to steal turns. Building battlers around skills that maximize critical hits is another way. And if you are terrified of the infamous one-shot deaths that people like to say are the franchise trademark? Equip null-death magatama in between level ups. Raise your luck. Resolve battles before enemies even have the chance to use the spell against you. Raise your speed so enemies don’t get the chance to go first. Get endure as soon as possible. The tools for success are all right there for you! Nocturne tasks you with growing strong enough in this world to ascend to creation, and it provides you with multiple paths to reach this goal.

So, about these multiple paths, let me talk to you a bit about SMT3’s famously unique alignment system. Other games are lauded for their ultimately fairly stupid morality systems but Nocturne breezily operates on a completely different level. Instead of RESCUE and HARVEST in dumb giant gothic font or literally color-coded paragon and renegade meters, in SMT3 you align yourself naturally through story progression with factions concerned with stillness, power, solitude, freedom, or rebellion. Instead of the grand binary moral choice being telegraphed through hideous-looking “Little Sisters” (god I hated that stupid name haha) there’s a rough analogue in  the actually sympathetic but far more complex unsettling-looking Manikins, whose character motif is described by the creators as representing those who lose themselves to the strength of numbers. There’s unfortunately a tiny amount of material in the game to support extremely tedious “canon” discussion, but the game actually works best and most purely as an abstract, impressionistic vision of grand universal themes. Playing through any one of SMT3’s six endings makes the universe feel vast and overwhelming, and asks you to contend with a broader suite of philosophies than ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ and that’s ultimately what I think the developers were most interested in going for.

Something about the prose in Nocturne is also special in a way that is extremely difficult to accurately describe. Like everything else in this game it feels elegant and detached, gods and goddesses are appropriately otherworldly without sounding like haughty stereotypes, lower demons are funny and crass in a way that’s not so on-the-nose. Again it’s very difficult to pinpoint but something has been lost in the writing of the newer games, even a bit as small as how angels and demons in the game actually never name anything directly as God, but instead refer obliquely to a Lord, an Absolute, or a Great Will, Nocturne just gets all the little details right.

As I run out of steam from this braindump, I notice there’s still an essay’s worth of observations in so many other topics that deserve to be discussed. The Tokyo-focused but somehow universal theming of the game’s alignment principles and locale visuals. The insanely expansive but unfortunately compressed soundtrack (see over three hours of unreleased material alone here), where dungeon music regularly evolves to indicate progression, and battle and boss music quantity is generously varied both between and within song. The extremely rewarding fusion system can be plumbed to frankly insane depths, with a demon bestiary that is reasonable to 100%, and the lack of “use it or lose it” demon quality that hits other SMT series games contributing to a better feeling of progression and customization opportunities. The demon negotiation, which rewards your knowledge of mythological connections among pantheons with unique one-time only dialogue. The dungeons, the DUNGEONS. With the exception of an early set of sewers, an apparent shitty dungeon theme RPG tradition, each of these are little masterpieces of aesthetics and design, with their own thoughtfully introduced and iterated gimmick, planned wonderfully for both third and first person, often wrapping in and around themselves in spirals in that very Shin Megami Tensei-specific way.

Even if you think a game like Nocturne seems too dense or impenetrable or boring or random-encounter filled or whatever, it’s worth giving it a real shot for yourself to see if it manages to grab you. We’re no longer in those days in the late 2000s where the game cost exorbitant amounts of money to get, a digital version can be found on PS3 for $10 (with only rare emulation issues in certain dungeon sections), and the disc itself was reprinted and can be found brand new on Amazon if you have a PS2 or want to emulate on PCSX2, where the game looks even more breathtaking. Either way, find a way to treat yourself to an RPG where it is actually appropriate to throw around the term masterpiece. I didn’t really write any of this text no one’s going to read to make a persuasive case to anyone, but sometimes games will inspire you and it feels good to ramble about them. Games like this one are nearly impossible to make nowadays, and SMT3 is something worth cherishing.

[numberonerandomblogger]

Double review : Persona 5 vs. Blue Reflection!?(no spoilers)

    Before anyone comments anything, I’d like to say that this is just for pure fun and that you all know what the winner will be. What do these games have in common? They’re both turn-based RPGs released for the PS4, so comparing them is not a huge stretch. That’s it. That’s all. This list is purely opinion-based, so I don’t mind if you disagree with me. So let’s get on with the review.

Presentation:visuals

   Let’s get the most obvious aspect of the game out of the way before we move on to the good stuff. Blue Reflection has nice environments, a bunch of neat stylised menus, and neat enemy designs. However, due to its budget, most of the girls have the same type of faces with not that many expressions. The framerate also isn’t always consistent and can often drop to less than 30 per second. The game also crashed for no reason twice during my playthrough. Meanwhile, Persona 5 has some of the greatest menus I’ve ever seen in a videogame, great framerate(even on PS3), and gorgeous environments. Sure, the models aren’t the most expressive, but the game exaggerates these characters’ movements and gives them 2D animated expressions in order to compensate for that. Both games suffer the same problem of lip movements not matching the characters’ voices. The voice acting is great in both games, too. In other words, P5 is the clear winner of this round.

Presentation: music

  I hate to admit this, I didn’t like too much Shoji Meguro’s music in P5 compared to Persona 3 nor 4. There are a few catchy tunes such as the battle themes and the intro, but most of the music playing in the dungeons or in the cutscenes isn’t anything special to me. Meanwhile, with Blue Reflection, the mix of piano and electro sounds made the soundtrack outstanding to me. From the more relaxing moments to the intense as hell fights, Hayato Asano knows how to create a magical atmosphere. As much as I hate to say it, Blue Reflection wins the best music for me.

Gameplay

    Both games might be turn-based RPGs where you spend some time socializing in school and some time beating enemies in dungeons, but both of them have their unique twists to stand out from each other. When you beat enemies in Blue Reflection, you don’t get any experience points: you get items you can use before fights to boost your HP/Defense/Attack, etc. You can use them to craft more powerful items, too. How do you level up, then? By hanging out with your friends to get to know them better and progressing through the story. Don’t worry, you still have to beat enemies in order to craft great items and to complete sidequests. The problem I have with sidequests is that you’re forced to do a certain number of them to progress to the next chapter. It makes the game longer just for the sake of it despite the game having no clear time limits. At least these sidequests are mostly worth it, since the rewards given help you power-up some of your attacks. The battles are a mix of the Atelier series and Shin Megami Tensei post-Nocturne. I really ended up enjoying it. As for Persona 5, you have a time limit in order to do everything you need to, which includes the sidequests and the main story quests. So you have to plan your schedule carefully. You also level up normally in this game by exploring dungeons and defeating shadows, although you get some sweet bonuses by hanging out with some characters. You battle using Personas, which you can collect in dungeons or fuse to create other Personas. The way you can get some is by negotiating with Shadows, which is a genius idea. The usual weakness system from the series is back as well and it works perfectly. As for the dungeons, they’re mostly great (aside from Okamura’s palace) with some neat puzzles. Despite the time limit being present, I ended up having more fun with Persona 5’s gameplay.

Storyline

    As for the story of Persona 5 itself, I ended up downright hating it. The game’s story is about how you are a student who gets blamed for a crime he didn’t commit and who is forced to transfer schools. He then discovers he can go in people’s minds to steal their “treasure” like a phantom thief. There’s more to that, but I don’t want to spoil the game’s story. All you have to know is that the villains are cartoonishly evil, the game tries to connect every chapter in a very rushed way, the protagonist’s main motivation feels very rushed and very badly put together, there is a message about rebelling against the authority being constantly thrown at your face during each story arc, and the game ends with a bunch of unexpected twists/asspulls that come out of nowhere just to make you facepalm during the end credits. There is even a character WHO EVERYONE FORGETS ABOUT UNTILL THE END OF THE GAME. Meanwhile, Blue Reflection opts for a much more minimalistic approach to the main story in order to focus on character development. It’s about a Hinako Shirai, an high school student who transfers to a new school due to an injury she had after dancing ballet and discovers she can fight the litteral demons in people’s minds. Yes, there is one or two twists here and there, but the plot is well-executed despite its simplicity. I wouldn’t say it’s the greatest story ever told, though, since there is a bunch of filler interludes that constantly interrupt the main storyline. Even during the interludes, the game has quite a few emotional moments that made me tear up a few times. Something that Persona 5 didn’t really have. Blue Reflection wins this category by far.

Characters

   Blue Reflection splits character development into multiple chapters and interludes in order for everyone of your classmates to get the spotlight. The best character has to be Hinako, who discovers that, despite her injury, she’s not the only human stuck in a complicated situation and that she can relate to her classmates. It’s not just about her getting over her injury: it’s about her understanding humans a bit more. Why did I keep playing Persona 5 aside from the gameplay and the presentation, then? The main characters/good guys. While they aren’t as memorable as the previous entries and can sometimes be inconsistent in their dialog, I ended up liking the whole cast (except Morgana). They’re pretty damn entertaining to hang out with, making the character-focused moments the best part of the game’s story. Too bad Persona 5’s story isn’t ALWAYS character-focused. Persona 5 wins this one for me.

 Localization

    Persona 5 has both English and Japanese dubs while Blue Reflection has only a Japanese dub. Blue Reflection also has quite a few spelling mistakes while Persona 5 has none. There are also a few voiced segments from Blue Reflection that aren’t subtitled at all. Persona 5 wins that category.

Conclusion

Persona 5 might be my favorite of the two games, but Blue Reflection still has some good ideas that were well executed despite the probable budget cuts(the game costs 30-40$ on PS4 while Persona 5 costs 60$). I’ve had so much fun writing this review. Feel free to agree or disagree.

[dlamp-dictator]

Allen’s Rambles About Persona 4 Arena

So... back in my RWBY Rambling I said that I really wasn’t going to like May since I’d be doing my breakdown and retrospective on the Blazblue series for the release of Blazblue Cross Tag Battle. Well it turns out I suck at keeping a schedule when it comes to these Ramblings, because I still need to talk about Persona 4 Arena and Under Night In-Birth. Sorry for the wait folks, I just haven’t had anything to say about these two series until now. It was hard to figure out a good way to articulate how I feel about these two games. After a bit of thinking I now know how I want to tackle these series, so I’ll get started with Persona 4 Arena first then move onto Under Night at a later date. 

With all that said, hello Persona 4 and Blazblue fanbase, I’m Allen X. I write fanfics, fan lyrics to video game songs I like, and occasionally write out an opinion piece or two when I’m in the mood. 

I’ve been a big fan of the Persona series for a few years now, with Persona 4 Arena  being the main thing that drew me into the series. Since then I’ve played Persona 3 FES, Persona 4, and Persona 5, even dipping in SMT: Devil Survivor 2 just for the sake of trying what the SMT universe had to offer, and reading through the manga adaptation of SMT: Devil Survivor 1. For those of you not familiar with the Persona 4 game and are curious about it... well, I’m sadly not going to explain the plot or story, but I do recommend watching the anime, Persona 4 the Animation if you want a crash course in what that game is about and not spend 60+ hours on a JRPG.

In any case, let’s get that Synopsis out of the way. I’m gonna’ be a little cheap this time around and copy the wiki page if that’s alright with you all. If I were to give a true synopsis of Persona 4 Arena I’d be spoiling Persona 4 and Persona 3. So then:

The game takes place two months after the events of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 as well as two years after the Persona 3 FES's "The Answer" storyline. Like Persona 4, Persona 4 Arena takes place in the fictional, rural Japanese town of Inaba. However, most of the events occur in the TV world, a dimension that reflects people's feelings. In this game, the world takes the form of Inaba's Yasogami High School, which is divided in multiple areas that serve as arenas.

As Yu returns to visit Inaba for Golden Week, he and the others witness a commercial on the Midnight Channel for a fighting tournament, the "P-1 Grand Prix", hosted by what appears to be their friend Teddie. The tournament not only involves them, but also their companions Kanji Tatsumi and Naoto Shirogane. With their friends Rise Kujikawa, Kanji and Teddie missing, and Naoto absent, Yu, Yosuke, Chie and Yukiko decide to investigate. The following day, they enter the TV and find themselves stuck in a world resembling Yasogami High School.

So yeah, it’s literally a Persona 4 fighting game with some Persona 3 characters thrown in. I’d talk a little bit about Ultimax, but again I don’t want to fill this Rambling with spoilers

That done, I’ll move onto...

My History

Like I said, Persona 4 Arena was my first true dive into the series in terms of a financial purchase, but I’ve been familiar with Persona 4 since it first came out on the PS2 (God, I’m getting old). Yes, it looks like we’re two for two in terms of drama and fandom outcry not being what initially drew me to Persona 4 Arena and Persona 4 as a whole. 

I actually got into Persona 4 when let’s plays of the original game was coming out. I mostly saw the clips and cutscenes of the game and was able to piece together enough about the plot to understand and enjoy it, but I was fully hooked when the anime came up, Persona 4 the Animation. I had a PS2 and PS3 at the time, but I really didn’t want to buy the game since the PS3 was starting to gain more prevalence and I was saving for other games. I found the anime it to be a great adaptation for the game, to the point where I can safely say if you don’t know about the story Persona 4 the anime is a great way to get caught up if you don’t want to spend 60+ hours playing the original game.

I bought Persona 4 Arena a little after it released in the West, and I found it to be one of the more accessible fighting games at the time, especially for anime air-dashers and for Arc System Works games in general. I had Blazblue at the time, but I sucked at it and just spammed revolver combos or Noel’s drive to get by, but Persona 4 Arena helped me get a better handle on how fighting games work.

Which brings me to...

The Appeal

I’ll be honest, this game doesn’t really have much appeal unless you’re a Persona fan. This game heavily references both Persona 4 and Persona 3 with how characters fight, a lot of flavor text that happened between characters, how a lot of the UI is displayed, and (most important of all) its story. I feel the same way about Dragonball FightererZ,  this game is a love letter to Persona 4 and Persona 3 fans, but unless you like those two games there isn’t much to care about. I think outside of a love for the series the only other real appeal is the accessibility. Before DBFZ came out, Persona 4 Arena was probably the most accessible Arc System Works fighting game out there. There was an auto combo system for new player to use, but there were also some more complex systems to it too, liking properly using EX moves and EX supers, managing Awakening Mode, properly using strong and Persona attacks in your combos do a large amount of damage, and so on.

Though, it I were to give a personal appeal of the Persona 4 Arena, namely for Ultimax, it’d be Golden Arena Mode, an RPG-esque mode that lets you gain experience, level up your character, and gave you wicked-powerful buffs as you get stronger. It was a great call back to Blazblue arena, and something pray get’s put into Cross Tag Battle somehow.

So all in all, not much I can say to sell Persona 4 Arena to people that have never played a Persona game. In any case, I’ll be moving onto...

My Mains

What kind of Fighting Game Retrospective would this be if I didn’t talk about who I mainly play? Just a quick explanation before I go on. When I play a fighting game, I usually have two to three mains, and about 4 subs. The main reason being in case someone gets extremely nerfed and become unplayable in a competitive sense. Now I rarely play top tier characters for this reason, but... well, they nerfed Answer in Guilty Gear for some God-forsaken reason, so I think I was right to have Ram and Chipp on the side. The reason I have so many subs is because I play these games on a more casual level, and I like experiment with just about everyone... except the grappler characters... sorry Kanji.

But anyway, here are my Persona 4 Arena Mains

Yosuke is basically the ninja of the game, and as you will see in future Ramblings, I usually main toward the ninja, the only games I haven’t would be Under Night In-Birth where I sub Seth, Virtua Fighter were I just haven’t touched Kagemaru yet, and... that’s really it. Yosuke is “Mixups the Character”. He has a move for just about every situation and can easily confuse his opponents. A warping sweep, kunai throws, his moonsault, God’s gift to all Yosuke mains, Tentrafoo, and Sukaja. And honestly, this is probably the most fun I’ve heard Yuri Lowenthal have voicing the guy. He sounds so energetic. 

Along with the ninja, I always main who I believe is “Best Girl” of that series. Now that’s a very subjective matter, I know, but I’ll just say that Chie is a rushdown-heavy character that I could get down with. I think this was my first time hearing Erin Fitzgerald’s voice too, and what a way to do it. I think she sounds great as Chie, at least for the fighting games. I’ll save my critique of Persona 4 for a later date, but her Power Charge ability and God Hand can one-shot just about any opponent. She’s a bit of a glass cannon as a result, but God what a cannon.

So... SHO Minazuki. I really like his playstyle, mostly because I don’t have to worry about his Persona breaking since he doesn’t have one. He’s rushdown-heavy like Chie, but he’s a little more risk-reward. His all-out attack has a weird hitbox, but other than getting around that I have a lot of fun playing him. I like him, I like him a lot.

I also subbed Yukari, Marie, Teddie, and Sho MINAZUKI, but these are my three mains.

So, with my main’s out of the way, I’m going go straight into...

The Conclusion

I sorry this Rambling isn’t like the monster the RWBY Rambling was, but I’m honestly very apathetic to Persona 4 Arena as a fighting game. As a Persona game I’ve got some issues with how it writes some of it’s characters and how contrived the story feels, but over I find it to be a solid game in general and worth getting if you’re a fan of Persona. 

[eirikrjs]

What's your writing process like? You're so eloquent (even when answering tumblr asks ... the serious replies, anyway) and it's inspiring me to get to that level.

Awesome, I’m happy and flattered to be an inspiration! Never had my writing described as “eloquent,” so thanks for that! :)

So, I typically write for three different formats, each with its own approach but with some commonalities.

#1: Tumblr posts

Answering Tumblr asks first and foremost always starts with the good intentions to actually delve into the ask backlog. In reality, this almost never happens and I default to the first page in my inbox. It’s not technically writing but choosing asks is key to this whole process. I love ones I can answer in a sentence (or image) or two but many involve taking the time to research or fact-check. I like those too, but if they require too much of an involved effort they are more likely to go unanswered, as I only have so much time. Lately I’ve only been able to do Tumblr stuff after 11PM EST. Though I want to put much of the blame on Tumblr itself because if there was a way to tag or favorite certain asks for later (and save drafts of ask replies), I’d get a lot more done. But hey, it’s a site made mostly for sharing images, so what can you expect?

Ask frequency varies but since this is perceived as a Shin Megami Tensei blog, activity naturally increases around the time of new SMT releases, where I can get 10 or so asks a day, especially if I’m active that particular day. Since we’re in the middle of an SMT drought, activity has really dried up. I still try to answer an average of three per day.

As for my actual writing and style, I personally perceive myself as a slow writer. I believe this is so because in real life I tend towards being a perfectionist with most things I do. I proofread an average length post of 2-3 paragraphs at least three or four times. One of those average length posts will take me about 20-30 minutes to write, more if there are images involved.

Another self-perception is a preference for direct language and communication. That’s why I was surprised you called my writing “eloquent,” as I like to be straightforward and succinct, workmanlike. That said, I also am sometimes frustrated that my English lexicon isn’t grander than it is, so I often use a thesaurus to brush up. But it’s never about interjecting superfluous flair or purple prose but instead the right word that could stand in for three or four others and create better sentence flow.

#2 Long-form articles

Many of the articles I’ve written grew naturally out of Tumblr posts and asks to lengths that would be inappropriate for the Tumblr format, compounded with the problem of Tumblr’s limited (read: single option) image formatting.

When I start work on long articles, I usually go analog and write outlines and other notes in a notebook. Being away from a screen and listening to music helps stimulate my brain. Music is especially important but mostly for #3, below.

After jotting down what I plan to achieve, I often jump right in to Word or Google Docs and start writing the real text for whatever my head wants to spill at that particular moment. However, I burn out quickly here because, more often than not, I like to have properly cited sources to back up my claims and, like the Tumblr asks, researching can take a while! It’s not just about finding sources and pasting in the right quotes but understanding their context and ensuring they are used appropriately in support of an argument. It’s like every college paper I ever did, only I’ve actually cared about these!

Revision is key, as is being willing to trim dead branches. For example, from initial concept to publication, it took me around 10 months to finish all three parts of SMT’s Identity Crisis. Within about three months I had an article that was about 70% "finished,” but it was meandering and amateurish. It had a clear thesis but an inconsistent voice. It was difficult to do but I wrote a new draft that cut out much I previously thought important. It was the right call, the new draft, the current text, was clearer and better delineated. Subsequent articles have logically taken less time to write as I’ve gained experience with the format, all but the Odin one this past summer; it took me almost a year after I kept piling on new ideas, observations, and the silly notion to simultaneously reveal a website and a long-secret project.

All the same vocab and proofreading rules from #1 still apply, though scaled appropriately. I must have read the finalized Identity Crisis a few dozen times before it was published--and I still found typos much later, to my chagrin!

I treat article images as levity providers, something I hope helps retain reader interest throughout what are often lengthy documents. This is influenced by the humorous alt texts often employed by defunct gaming site The GIA, an outfit that probably made the biggest single impact on my games writing. Andrew Vestal’s Vagrant Story review not only convinced me to play the game, likely my favorite ever, for the longest time I considered it the standard for a game review. When I wrote the Vagrant Story piece for Hardcore Gaming 101, I deliberately included images similar to those of the Vestal review and alt texts (which HG101 typically didn’t or doesn’t use) as tribute.

#3 Creative stuff

I rarely talk about my original creations, if ever (I mean, talk about defunct sites--but I promise it won’t always be that way), but they do exist! I’ve been writing creatively since I was 11. Much of it bad, but that’s okay! (You’ll never see that stuff!)

We’re all influenced by the media we consume and I’m no different. For me this most plainly manifests through music, historically mostly video game soundtracks. In the past I would listen separately to soundtracks from games I already knew front and back to absorb the tone and mood of the music, which I’d then turn into various ideas (still mostly in notebooks, though that’s changing). For the longest time I thought listening to instrumental music was the key to promoting pure, imaginative ideas, but since Wisdom Eternal: 1973 is technically a period piece I’ve been listening to classic rock and having just as much luck inspiring the old noggin. It also helps that ‘70s rock influenced most of the game music I like!

The previous point made me realize something: when I criticize modern SMT, for example, I’ve also been unconsciously making the statement ���I don’t want this to influence me.” Though, ironically, acknowledging those flaws has been hugely influential on how NOT to approach certain things. “We are what we eat,” and that equally applies to consumed media. Some of my older creative works that I now deem to be bad were the result of a limited pool of influences, mostly JRPGs. Very much akin to light novel-caliber writing and concepts, which are often similarly criticized for their extremely narrow range of influences too often focused on literal conflict and not empathetic, realistic characterization.

This post has been going on for a while, but one last thing I’ll say about my creative writing is just how slow the process can be. It’s slower than writing a research-heavy article, just because the idea or two you need to link certain plot threads can’t always be forced out of your brain. In my case, namely the subject of mythology and religion in a narrative, it’s not just writer’s block, it’s about being well-read enough to know (Y) about a particular culture in order to solve (X) narrative problem. Ya gotta read and you gotta read the right stuff, though what the right stuff is will of course vary depending on your own goals.

This was a fun ask that took me just over 2 hours to write, so I hope it’s helpful for you! Honestly, I could have said more but enough’s enough. That said, in the past I’ve tried adopting other writers’ processes to help my own only to find I couldn’t harmonize with their methods. But it’s something you’ll only find out as you write more and better understand what methods are comfortable for you. I can attest, that can take many years. Good luck!

[repentantsky]

Top Games I’m Looking Forward To in 2021 (Part 1)

2020 was a horrible year, but the thing that kept me and many other sane were the slue of great games that came out, or in my case, a combination of that and buying older games for my handheld consoles. However 2021, has a lot more games that are my style, so I’m much more excited for it than I was for most of this year. Allow me to have my longest list yet in celebration of this fact, and do so in parts as there is a lot to talk about, as I look at 8 upcoming games in 2021, that I can’t wait to play. To make things fair, and hopefully to keep this list as accurate as possible, I will only be counting games that have a release date as of my writing this. Also, my lists aren’t usually ranked by how much I want to play a game, as much as they are how much I want to talk about a game, so my most anticipated game for next year could easily be the first entry. With those explanations out of the way, let’s talk about games. 

8. The Medium. 

The Medium is a horror game made in a similar vain to Silent Hill’s Midwich Elementary, in that there are two realities existing at once, and you are constantly switching in between them. The idea is always one that has fascinated me as a horror fan, but the Medium really looks to amping up the scares by using the visuals that we can currently attain to increase the fear factor, instead of making everything pretty to try and sell people on that end of it. The gross, disgusting, and frightful looking world we are presented with in The Medium is one I cannot wait to explore, even if I don’t have an Xbox Series X to play it on. Regardless of anything, it looks like it might be my personal favorite horror game of 2021 when it comes out, barring no delay, on January 28th. 

7. Ys IX: Monstrum Nox. 

The Ys series is honestly one of the more underrated long running series in JRPG history. If you need proof of that, just play Ys Origin, Memories of Celceta, or Ys VIII for confirmation. These games are incredible. YS IX looks to be taking the series in a darker direction than most, if not all the previous entries in the series, and not only is that super compelling, but it seeing YS in a darker light, might actually go a long way in helping it become the franchise it deserves to be in the eyes of fans everywhere. The combat looking more refined than ever, on top of the best visuals the franchise has seen to this point only add to the excitement, and the characters, from what we’ve seen so far, also look like they’ll stand out in a series full of fantastic characters throughout. YS IX, probably won’t be my JRPG of the Year, but darn if it won’t be up in the top 5.

6. Little Nightmares 2.    

Did I make it clear that I love horror yet? I hope so because this might not even be the last horror game on this list. The original Little Nightmares was honestly my favorite horror experience when it released, because no other game really did a better job of making you feel isolated, alone and weak, which is the prefect setting for horror. While Little Nightmares 2 won’t be doing the isolation aspect as much as the first because of a second playable character, with the danger ramped up enough, which the demo seems to show that it will be, it should be more than capable of bringing out the fear that made the first so memorable. There’s almost nothing scarier than being a small child in an adult world that seems to want you dead, and Little Nightmares 2 has all the vibes set up for freaking everyone out. I doubt many in the horror genre will be able to do it as well as this game will. 

5. Persona 5 Strikers. 

Finally we are out of horror and darker games and all that, for a bit, as Persona 5 Strikers is easily looking to be my favorite warriors games of 2021. Not only do I love the concept of Warriors titles, but the Persona universe is one that fits that genre well by default, having a near endless slue of famous enemies to turn into either fodder for the thousands of kills we’ll get, or bosses that will gave fans a sense of nostalgia, espeically if they are fans of Shin Megami Tensei and older games in the franchise. I’ll admit, I’m a little bummed it’s not Persona X Shin Megami Tensei, where characters from both the original franchise and the spinoff can get together to cause mayhem, but it’s the next best thing, and I am all here for it. The story promises to be incredible, and the gameplay fantastic, with that Atlus special touch added in. There’s no reason not be excited about what they put out there. 

4. NieR Replicant ver. 1.22474487139...

Gawd, that name though. Crazy name aside, NieR on the PS3 was a brilliant game, that was sadly underrated due to the time of it’s release, a lack of marketing, and people generally not knowing who Taro Yoko was at the time. His history speaks for itself though, with the brilliant yet weird Drankengard series, and NieR itself really being a shining example of what he can do. To see Replicant, a game that never made it to the West, be remade with combat done in the style of NieR Automata, is such an exciting prospect that I can hardly contain my hype. Not only does the title look better than the original by miles, which was visually fascinating to begin with, but the wonderful and odd music, and everything that can really be expected of Taro Yoko is there in full swing. We are looking at an upcoming masterpiece I am certain.

3. Super Mario 3D World + Bowsers Fury

I’m not always the biggest fan of Mario mainline platformers, but seeing as I really found myself enjoying his most recent Switch and 3DS exploits, I cannot help being excited for the chance to play a Mario game I haven’t had the chance to previously, with some extra content to boot. Car Mario looks like a lot of fun to play, and the chance to play with up to four people is something I can’t pass the chance to play. I know very little of the game, other than it’s massive popularity and high praise upon release, and sometimes, it’s nice to go into a game as blind as possible, even if the story isn’t likely going to be anything to write home about. Whatever the title brings, it will be enjoyable to say the least, and possibly the most solid of platformers for 2021. 

2. Bravely Default II.

I won’t lie, I have a complicated history with Bravely Default as a series. While I did manage to power my way through the first game, it took some time to make it happen, and honestly, despite it’s great characters and even better story, the gameplay left me wanting. However, Bravely Default: End Layer was and still is one of my favorite JRPG’s on the 3DS, so here’s hoping enough of the good that came from that game, finds it’s way to Bravely Default II. Regardless of if it does or not, I always willing to give a format a second go, and I’ve already found myself completely in love with the playable characters, just from the two demos alone, so all signs point to a fantastic game that I cannot to wait to experience. 

1. Poison Control.

The best part of doing a list like this, is throwing something in there that no one expects, and may not have even heard of. Without a doubt, the most anime shit style game on my list, Poison Control is a game that might be more about the story, than the gameplay. The basis is you are stuck in another world, with two characters bound to one soul, and you’re goal is to remove the poison from people’s minds, by invading their brains and literally clearing it out. You might monsters and run over the poison in their heads, to hopefully make them better people. Despite the dark sounds setting, and even the slightly darker visuals, this is probably one of the most light hearted games on my list. I have to say though, there’s always something to these sorts of games despite their obvious lack in certain quality, that I enjoy. The game doesn’t actually have a Western release date either, so I’m cheating a bit, but with a catchphrase like “Purge Poison, Raise Hell” how can you not be at least a little bit excited for what’s to come of this game. 

And that’s my list. Did I miss anything you’re super excited for? Let me know in the notes below, and be ready, because part 1 of this list will be all about games without a release date, and that’s where the hype can really begin.  

[playernumberv]

Upcoming Games I’m excited for!

What better way to celebrate my love for games than by literally listing down all the games I’m eagerly waiting to play? What better way to cure my disappointment in TLOU2 than to look forward to other games that (hopefully) won’t disappoint? 

So here we go, a list of games that I’m either actively excited to pre-order and play, or at least to keep in mind and await more information about before I decide whether I’ll play it. I hope I didn’t miss out anything, but I’ll edit this post if something comes to mind that I’ve accidentally left out. Several of the games below are multi-platform games that are also releasing on the Xbox, but as I’ve noted in my introductory post, I’m only interested in the Switch and the PlayStation, and hence I’ve opted only to include the consoles I’m interested in below.

Let’s go!

1. Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town (N. Switch) - 14 July 2020

After something as dark and miserable as TLOU2, a nice and chill farming simulator may be exactly what I need, even more so because it’s a remake of the first Harvest Moon game I played and loved on the GBA when I was a kid. There’s something about the series that’s incredibly charming and lovable, and I’ve had countless hours of fun on later Harvest Moon (or Story of Seasons) games as well. It’s been several years since the last mainline installment, so I’m eagerly excited for this!

2. Ghosts of Tsushima (PS4) - 17 July 2020

TLOU2 (I just can’t stop talking about this, can I?) has, to be perfectly honest, shaken my faith in games - the one game I thought could never possibly fail me has failed me in the most miserable way possible. But I nevertheless await Ghosts of Tsushima with great enthusiasm, and I hope it will be a more satisfying exclusive. Trailers for the game have looked astoundingly good so far, and an open-world samurai action game simply sounds like a lot of fun, not to mention how absolutely gorgeous the rendition of feudal Japan looks in this game. I don’t expect this to be GOTY-worthy, all I expect is that it’d be a blast to play - and that’s really all I need from this particular title.

3. Marvel’s Avengers (PS4) - 4th September 2020

I’m expecting that this will just be a decent game rather than an excellent one, but I’m prepared to be surprised (and hopefully not disappointed). Really, though, an AAA Avengers game is a must-play for me even if it’s just sub-par. I’m going in with no real expectations - to expect the game to do better than the well-established MCU seems to be a fool’s dream. As long as it’s decent fun, I’ll be content!

4. The Legend Of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV (PS4) - 27th October 2020

Of the remaining games this year, Cold Steel IV is probably the one I’m most hyped for. I love this series - it’s an extremely compelling and fascinating JRPG, with a gigantic cast of characters who are all very, very charming and likeable. I love JRPGs, and I daresay this shines as one of the best JRPG series out there. Cold Steel III was my personal GOTY last year - I don’t believe it was reported to be GOTY in any official outlet, since it’s such a niche game - and I absolutely had a blast on it. It ended on a jaw-dropping cliffhanger that has left me yearning for more ever since, and I absolutely cannot wait to get my hands on Cold Steel IV.

5. Cyberpunk 2077 (PS4/PS5) - 19th November 2020

I think it’s no understatement to say that this is the gaming community’s most anticipated - or should I say, breathtaking - game this year. It’s on this list, but realistically, I probably won’t play it. I get severe motion sickness from first-person games, regrettably. However, CDPR is of such renown that even I cannot ignore this game - I’m closely watching it, and pondering the possibility of enduring literal nausea in order to play this absolutely monumental game. 

6. Bravely Default 2 (N. Switch) - TBA 2020

I think it’s pretty obvious that I’m a huge fan of JRPGs, and I damn near screamed when this was announced for the Switch during The Game Awards 2019. The 3DS is a treasure trove of excellent JRPGs, and ever since the Switch was launched, I’ve been eagerly anticipating Switch versions of many JRPGs I loved on the 3DS. Bravely Default is one such game. Boasting a charming art style, an excellent turn-based battle system, and music so good that one could die for it, Bravely Default is truly a gem in the world of JRPGs. Bravely Default 2 is exactly the kind of game I bought a Nintendo Switch for, and I absolutely cannot wait to get my hands on this one.

7. Yakuza: Like A Dragon (PS4) - TBA 2020

The Yakuza series is an excellent masterclass in storytelling, but I have mixed feelings about a sequel. Yakuza 6 has wrapped up Kiryu Kazuma’s story to utter perfection, and I’m not sure whether a sequel starring other characters will be quite as charming. That being said, Judgment blew me away with its incredulously well-crafted detective story, so much so that I ended up liking this spinoff more than any Yakuza game. If the same hands that crafted Judgment are making this follow-up to the Yakuza series, I trust the studio to surprise me pleasantly.

8. Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales (PS5) - TBA 2020

What more needs to be said, really? Marvel’s Spider-Man is perhaps the most accomplished superhero video-game ever. In a year (2018) of gigantic games such as God Of War and Red Dead Redemption 2, Marvel’s Spider-Man nevertheless stood out with an excellent superhero story written with the joyousness and intensity of a classic Marvel movie, accompanied by well-designed game-play that was a lot of fun. It is a truly generation-defining game, and I absolutely cannot wait to play its follow-up (sort of) on the PS5.

9. Watch Dogs: Legion (PS4/PS5) - TBA 2020

Honestly, I didn’t like the previous games in this series at all. However, the concept behind Legion seems genuinely creative and fresh, and hence I’m willing to give this a chance. Certainly I will not be pre-ordering this, but if it turns out to be decent, I’d surely give this a purchase post-launch.

10. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (PS4/PS5) - TBA 2020

Again, the previous Assassin’s Creed games have been either hits or misses for myself. I’m not much a fan of Ubisoft-style open-world gameplay, although it does the job well enough to make for decent fun. Valhalla looks fascinating based on early trailers, though, so I’m definitely keeping a lookout for it.

11. Kena: Bridge of the Spirits (PS5) - TBA 2020

I don’t know enough about this game to be certain if I’ll be playing it yet, but suffice to say that its announcement trailer really charmed me. I’ll be keeping a lookout for more information about this game for sure.

12. Ys IX: Monstrum Nox (PS4) - TBA 2021

I only got introduced into this series with Ys VIII a few years ago - and what a wonderful game this was! I couldn’t help feeling like I’ve lost out from not being acquainted with this series for so long. Ys VIII took the trope of being “trapped on an island” and executed an amazingly gripping narrative based around this. I remember buying Ys VIII purely because I had nothing better to play, and I was surprised by just how much I enjoyed it. Unsurprisingly, I can’t wait for Adol’s next adventure in Ys IX.

13. Tales of Arise (PS4) - TBA 2021

It’s been 3 years since the last mainline Tales of game (Berseria, which happens to also be my personal favourite in the series), and I’ve eagerly awaited a new installment to this series since then. I love JRPGs with all my heart, and the Tales of series - with its charming skits, endearing characters, and enjoyable storylines - is one of the series I’ve loved for a long time. Regrettably, it was recently announced that Arise would be delayed due to COVID-19, but whenever it does come, you can be damn sure I’m playing it at launch.

14. Horizon Forbidden West (PS5) - TBA 2021

Horizon Zero Dawn is a heavily acclaimed video-game that I personally didn’t enjoy as much. I thought the story was a little dull and couldn’t seem to get into it. Even so? I’m incredibly excited for its sequel. I do hope to be more engrossed by its narrative the next time around, but if nothing else, the game just looks too bloody gorgeous (yes, yes, I’m superficial) for me to not be excited to play it. Good Gods, how do graphics that good even exist!?!? And I even thought that graphics on the PS4 were already absolutely gorgeous! Just give this to me and melt my damn eyes already.

15. Pragmata (PS5) - TBA 2022

This game looked seriously fascinating, not dissimilar to how Death Stranding looked fascinating and intriguing as hell. Again, too little is known about this game for me to have a clear opinion about it, but whatever little we know of Pragmata suggests that this could be an incredibly unique and innovative game, so I’ll be keeping a lookout for more information about this one.

16. Returnal (PS5) - 2020

Another game which I don’t entirely have a clear opinion of yet, but which heavily intrigued me with its announcement trailer. At this point I don’t have much to say about it other than that I’m looking forward to more information about it, so let’s see how this one turns out.

17. Scarlet Nexus (PS5) - TBA

This honestly looks unexpectedly excellent. I love the anime-style graphics in this one, and the game-play looks flashy and entertaining as well, though there’s not much information on its story currently. I’m not quite ready to say that this is a game I’d pre-order yet, but I’m keeping it in my radar since it seems like exactly the type of game I’d love. 

18. Shin Megami Tensei V (N. Switch) - TBA

At this point, it’s a little hard to be hyped for something which I know next to nothing about... but realistically? Come on, it’s Atlus. I waited an eternity for Persona 5 - and look how completely, utterly, and mindblowingly good that turned out. I know without any doubt that I’d be playing this at launch whenever it does release. Given the complete lack of any information on this game, my hype levels are currently rather dormant - but you can be damn sure that I’d explode with hype when Atlus finally gives us some more details about this game.

19. Bayonetta 3 (N. Switch) - TBA

I enjoyed Bayonetta and Bayonetta 2. So I’m going to play Bayonetta 3. That’s... all there is to it, really. I don’t think the games are particularly special or meaningful - they’re just fun. And honestly, that’s all games need to be sometimes. Not every single game needs to be a narrative masterpiece or a phenomenal accomplishment, after all.

20. Untitled The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Sequel (N. Switch) - TBA

BoTW was indeed phenomenal, albeit just a little overrated in my opinion (this is probably where I ought to put up shields against pitchforks). As far as game design goes, this game is truly revolutionary. It’s quite literally breathtaking - the world feels genuinely organic, and there’s a sense of freedom its open world grants that few if any other open world games manage to replicate. I do feel that the game would have been even more compelling had it been accompanied by a stronger narrative (I acknowledge however that story isn’t the point of these games), but regardless, I cannot deny just how good the game design here is. Whenever its sequel comes, it has earned a day-one purchase from me.

21. New Story of Seasons (Probably N. Switch?) - TBA

Nothing is known about this game other than that it exists. For the same reasons that compel me to play Story of Seasons - Friends of Mineral Town, I’d very likely play this game whenever it hits. In fact, part of me is even more excited for this than for the remake. The remake is primarily an enhanced version of an old game, after all - I’m very interested in seeing what new things they bring to table with this one.

22. Project Athia (PS5) - TBA

Since this is a Square Enix title, I predict that we probably wouldn’t be hearing anything about this game for another eight years or so, at which point the actual title of this game would finally be announced as Final Fantasy Re:Birth HD 3.14159, with a change of director to Tetsuya Nomura. Jokes aside, I was blown away by the teaser trailer of this game shown during the PS5 event - in fact, of all the games shown at the event, this was the one that got me the most hyped. A potentially-compelling female protagonist in a gorgeous-looking fantasy world with magic and monsters? Honestly, say no more. I’m pre-ordering this and playing it at launch.......... when it releases in 2050, probably.

23. Project Re Fantasy (???) - TBA

Of the five games I’ve given a 100/100 to, Katsura Hashino was involved in three of them (I know he wasn’t directly involved with Persona 5 Royal, but I think it still counts since he directed Persona 5), so you can imagine just how much I respect this guy’s works - and you can also imagine just how much I love JRPGs in general. We know nothing about this Project other than that it exists, and god knows how many years away this is from release. More importantly, I simply cannot wait to see what Katsura Hashino would do in a fantasy context. The Persona games are fundamentally rooted in magical realism, and Project Re Fantasy marks his first (if I’m not wrong?) foray into a true fantasy world. I simply cannot wait to see what he’s going to do. In fact, the mere fact that Katsura Hashino is in charge of this project is enough to earn my complete trust. I have absolutely no doubt that this game will be phenomenal (then again, I said the same thing for TLOU2 and look how that turned out...).

24. Final Fantasy VII: Remake Part 2 (PS5) - TBA

This isn’t formally announced yet, but we know it’s coming eventually. I very much loved Final Fantasy VII Remake - it wasn’t perfect, but it was really enjoyable despite its flaws (I say this as someone who has not played the original Final Fantasy VII). Being a JRPG fanatic, I think it’s unsurprising that I’d enjoy this, and it’s even less surprising that I’d be painstakingly waiting to see what comes next.

25. Sequel to God Of War (PS5) - TBA

This too isn’t formally announced yet, but it’s also pretty obvious that it’s going to be announced eventually. God Of War is, to understate its excellence, a revolutionary reinvention of the series and the genre. The game-play is quite possibly the best I’ve seen in any action game, and that’s just the icing on the cake with a narrative so thoughtfully written and nuanced. God Of War was generation-defining, and if its sequel builds on this, I have no doubt that its sequel will define the PS5 as well. That being said, my excitement is tempered  by anxiety too. A good start doesn’t guarantee a good follow-up, and it cannot be taken for granted that the sequel will be as good as God Of War is. Only time will tell, only time will tell.

This post ended up being a lot longer than I had planned (I’m out of steam writing this whole chunk of words), but it has been rather therapeutic typing this list out and reminding myself that there’s a lot more to look forward to. Until then!