aruru | Dusting off the journal, and Persona 3 first impressions.

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Dusting off the journal, and Persona 3 first impressions.

Oh wow, it's been like what - more than 2 months? - since my last post. O_o Oops. Some of you might've noticed that I was still around lurking and replying sporadically, though. Still, I'm sorry if I made anyone worry! ^^;

There have been a few things going on with me in "real" life, including one which may lead to my having less time to putz about online in the near future. I may or may not discuss them here some other time, depending on my mood/whim. We'll see.

Anyway, in gaming news, I bought Persona 3 back on Wednesday. I didn't get to actually play it until today, though. I did, however, check out the extra goodies it came with in the meantime. The artbook was pretty good, though short, and I rather liked the soundtrack CD. More companies should add extra swag of this quality to their games! :D

As for the game itself, I only played through the tutorial run in Tartarus and to the next day, in which I shopped for some new armor/shoes and healing items (I got lucky and received an extra 1000 yen to spend when I visited the shrine beforehand and tried out getting my fortune told. AND I also got an Academics boost when I made an offering during that visit. w00t! :D), and checked out a little bit of the town before quitting for dinner.

So, first impressions of the game:

- Voice acting, though not superb, isn't bad at all. I'm not cringing at anyone I've met yet, at least.

- Thus far, all of the main cast members I've met seem like they're going to be pretty cool people. I think I'm going to like them all.

- Speaking of which, thus far, it's looking like Junpei'll be my favorite. I know it's a little early to tell for sure, but I guess I just have a soft spot for the class clown. ^_^

- Battling looks like it's going to be plenty of fun, even though I don't get to control anyone but the main hero. Hopefully the other members' AIs are good - I haven't really tried out the Tactics command yet to see.

- I really wish you could check the party's equipment all at once rather than having to ask each chara individually to see their respective inventory and stats. I know they're trying to get you into the whole "camaraderie" feel, but it's slightly annoying to have to go one by one. :\

- Lastly, I have to agree with

ruaki that, while at first glance, it seems amusingly WTF, the whole "shooting yourself in the head with a fake gun to 'kill' your consciousness and summon the unconscious (aka Persona)" bit is really good symbolism. Go game designers! :D

That's about it for now. Oh, and in case anyone's wondering, I called the hero Kai Aomori. "Kai" just because I like the name and the character "looks" like the name fits him, and "Aomori" in honor of

rikoshi's time as an ESL teacher there so many years ago. All hail the Frozen Land of Tsugaru! ;)

ETA: My bad, it was only a month since I was "absent" from my journal. I keep reading the dates backwards. ^^; Still, if I worried anyone, apology still stands.

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I'm happy you're liking the game, too!

Oh man, the evokers cracked my shit up so much when I first saw it. You go, SMT! Way to make the series a little darker. Maybe they thought making friends with old booksellers was too cheerful...

Holy crap, that was a BLAZING fast reply! STALKER!

And they're so nonchalant about the Evokers, too! That was probably the most amusing part about them. :D

I can't wait to hear about the pissed-off parents who let Junior pick up this game and ignored the freaking M rating. That will surely be HILARITY! XD

I've been too busy with Romancing Saga. Heh.

Oh, hey Alruhi! *HUG* :D It's been a while since I last saw you post anywhere! How are you doing? I trust everything's fine?

How's Romancing Saga? Good?

Anyway, I hope you do get the chance to pick up Persona 3 soon. Though, considering you're a big SMT fan, I'm sure that'll be soon enough, yes? ^_^

Oh, yea everything's fine. I just lurk like always.

Yes, it is good, if you can deal with non-linearity, and I think the Minstrel makes it worth it. The game is cheap, and shouldn't be too hard to find.

There's no doubt that I'll be getting Persona 3, I'm just taking my time in doing it since I have other games to play. Heh.

Glad to hear you're doing well. It's always fun/interesting to hear from you. :)

Ah, I see. I'm not too used to truly non-linear games (I tried the first SaGa Frontier as a rental once, and got pretty lost.), but if I decide to give them a chance again, I'll consider it. ^^

Well, hopefully you'll get it before it disappears - you know better than I how Atlus is famous for their small print runs and all.

What other games are you playing, by the by?

I'll be getting it in the month.

As for RS, there's FAQS available at gamefaqs.com.

I finished Shadow of the Colossus last month, Final Fantasy XII before that, and I'm still going through Devil Summoner.

Heh, that's a lot of games. Then again, I haven't really flexed my gaming muscle in a pretty long while, so 1-2 games a month seems impressive now.

Devil Summoner!

redconverse posted regarding that game about a month ago. She really liked it, so much that it made me curious and I bought my own copy. Haven't tried it out myself yet, though - I wanted to play P3 first. Ah well, hopefully soon!

I think the one voice I dislike the most is the chairman's... But yeah, from what I've seen, the AI is really good! I kept fighting this one battle where the enemy absorbs fire damage. Though I knew it, since I kept retrying the same battle, my teammates didn't... So Junpei would always try to cast Agi on it first round, shout "Fire doesn't work on this thing!!", and then never use it again. I tried telling him to avoid using SP, but I decided it was better to assign a target to him and just deal with the wasted turn, for that battle at least.

I saw someone else post about another battle, complaining that Yukari wasn't doing anything, just choosing "Wait" each time. As other people explained, that particular enemy was immune to wind (her Persona's element) and pierce attacks (her weapon type). So since she couldn't do anything, she just healed when she could, and used Wait all other times...

And I'm sure the joke about the localizers changing the Evokers to walkie-talkies has been overdone by now...

I think the "weakest" voice for me thus far has been what little I heard of Elizabeth in the Velvet Room. Seemed a little flat on first impression. Hopefully she'll get better, though.

And... heh, at least they learn fast, instead of repeatedly wasting turns casting the wrong spells. Does the "knowledge" carry over to other battles with the same creatures, or do they repeat their mistakes and have to "re-learn" during the new fight?

Evokers being changed to walkie-talkies? *LOL* Where did that originate?

My biggest issue with the game so far is how I want to spend every waking minute of my life playing it.

I named my guy "Stan Shiny." I always spend so much time on those damn "Name Your Mute, Default-Nameless Character" screens in RPGs, because I can never decide whether to take it seriously or not (and naming it after myself is almost never an option.)

Yeah, I think I kinda know how you feel. Who'd have thought that reliving high school could be FUN? XD

"Stan Shiny?" *LMAO* Good lord, that's hilarious! XD

Also, I TOTALLY know how you feel about having a hard time naming Nameless Characters. I usually spend at least 15 minutes on those damn screens racking my brain for a name that "fits" the chara's look. And I can never think of a non-serious name, because then I feel bad for saddling the poor sods with a name that would get them mocked if they were for real. I know it's a little crazy, but I can't help it! ^^;

And yeah, naming them after myself or by my OL alias has rarely (if ever) been an option. That's why we should totally have more nameless female leads, dammit. Guys get to do it all the time - I wanna be a Mary Sue too! :P

Hm, oh yeah... I've just never heard Elizabeth speak again, so I guess I forgot she had a voice. I kinda liked Igor's, though likewise, I haven't heard anything else from him either. The chairman just seemed kind of... in outer space? Or maybe he was trying to get into character...

I'm not sure about the learning, but I think so. Since you can analyze the enemies, your teammates seem to have that info memorized, so I don't think I've seen them use an ineffective attack on an enemy more than once. I mean, a lot of times I've killed the enemy too quickly to get an analysis, so the next time I encountered them I'd still be without info, but I haven't seen my allies make the same mistake twice so far.

Remember when the 20th anniversary edition of E.T. was released, with extra CG effects? And one of the effects was the guns being turned into walkie-talkies?

Igor's voice was pretty good. It fit the character, I thought.

Ah, ok. I'll have to see the AI in action myself to see if this holds true. If it does, that would be awesome - charas that learn with you!

I've never seen that edition of E.T.. I THINK I might've heard of the change back when it came out, but forgot about it shortly afterwards, so that's why you lost me with that joke. And... *LOL* ...yeah, the longtime SMT fans would've thrown a SHITFIT had the localization team done something like that, heh! XD

Well, like you said, he's a Mary Sue, so he needed a Mary Sue name!

You should have seen what I did to the poor Prince from Suikoden V. It was ultimately a tossup between "Prince" and "Doofy," and I ended up choosing "Doofy" because I knew that having to put up with ever character going "Prince Prince, what's the haps?" was going to drive me mad. "Doofy" turned out to be unintentionally fitting, sometimes...

"DOOFY?" SERIOUSLY?

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHOMG that is the BEST. Poor guy! XD

Yeah! I was a bit disappointed not having more control over the other characters, but it's worked out really well so far, so I haven't had any complaints. They seem to do a decent job of keeping you healthy, too, since without you it's game over... but they seem unable to revive you.

Yeah, that version was out maybe five years ago? I remember a huge stink was raised when it came out, though I think at least the original version was also available on DVD. But then again, we're at war, so maybe guns are cool now?

It seems like they've learned their lesson about messing too much with the game? I didn't play too much of the previous games in the series, but I know the first Persona had a huge amount of Americanization, and we didn't even get one of the Persona 2 games. They seem to have done okay with other recent SMT games, though it was still a little bit of a surprise to see them keep the honorifics in Persona 3!

They're unable to revive you if you become incapacitated? That sucks! You'd think that they'd allow it if they're your friends and all... >O

Just five years ago? Wow, not as long ago as I thought. As for guns being cool again... heh, I dunno - we may be at war, but the Prez's approval ratings are at an all-time low, so it could be either way.

I dunno if it's so much "learned their lesson" as much as it is that gamers are much more open to/demanding of "uncensored" content nowadays than they were... say, ten years ago. Maybe it's the fact that the gamer demographic has gotten "older" in general? Hmm.

Yeah... It seems like everyone has their own individual inventory, too. And although you can change their equipment, it doesn't seem like you can give them consumables. On the plus side, they sometimes use high-powered healing items that'd be expensive, or even not available at the pharmacy yet.

It's kinda cool that they even say different things based on what equipment you give them, though!

Maybe one of the major factors has been the explosion of anime fandom in the US? And thus acceptance of, and interest in the Japanese culture? I think fans have always been vocal, but yeah, maybe they're in larger numbers and more beligerent today.

And there's also the rating system for "questionable" content... Though I'm still kinda annoyed at little things, like how FFTA removed references to Cid's alcoholism to achieve a lower rating...

Ah, I had no idea about that! I had noticed that you could change the equipment by talking to them (Which as I said in the post, kinda irks me because you have to go one-by-one rather than having them all in one handy menu.), but I had assumed that the item inventory I had was for the entire party. That's kinda cool, even if unpredictable.

Yeah, I think the inmersion into anime and Japanese culture has had something to do with things changing. That, and as I said, the fact that a lot of the original "videogame generations" are older now - companies are realizing that while "kid" games are still fun for a lot of us, we also want to see things that reflect/appeal to the "grownup" world. Or something.

And yeah, the rating system seems a bit inefficient/arbitrarily handled at times. At least it's not the government regulating it, though - that would've likely been worse, possibly even killing the industry. That's why I'm not too hard on the companies' decision to self-regulate, even with its flaws.

Wow, you still remember the Frozen Land of Tsugaru...

I... think I'm flattered!

*LOL* Dude, who can forget such heartwarming stories as the Venus Flytrap and the Gaijin Hunter? XD

Oh my god! Even I had forgotten about the Gaijin Hunter until this very moment!

(I at least still remembered Flytrap, of course, along with Scaryko and Bin Laden and Gollum and the rest...)

Haha Gollum! I had almost forgotten about that guy! That was one of my favorite stories, I think.

Oh hell, I just loved all of them - you had such colorful descriptions. XD

Igor's voice was the only one that didn't totally make me wince. D:

I turned off the voices, though... But I've been wondering if that turned off cut-scenes! There sure seemed like there were a lot before I turned it off (around the first few days of school) but now I haven't seen any. I wonder...

And honestly, I wouldn't have been surprised at ANYTHING they did in localization. P2: EP was brought over fairly unmolested, but Revelations! Oh man, people were suddenly blonde... Almost every character was altered to become more American somehow. D:

Not really. They were beaten in a span of a few months.

Devil Summoner is worth it. Has some great characters.

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Dusting off the journal, and Persona 3 first impressions.

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