Dusting off the journal, and Persona 3 first impressions.

[aruru]

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.

Comments

[aruru.livejournal.com]

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.