Atelier Ayesha (PS3): I wish I knew how to quit these.

A little over a year ago, I got the wild hair up my ass to try to step back into the Atelier universe. Having  not played one since the PS2 era, part of me was curious to see if it had changed at all. After playing Atelier Totori, I found it to be a decidedly average item creation JRPG with no lastability or originality to it, and figured it would quickly fade from my memory. The game however had another idea. 

I don't know how the hell it happened, but it became one of those games I'd kill whole days off on. I became  attached to the characters, got sucked into the universe and the lore. Next thing I know, I own the trilogy of games in Ateliers Rorona, Totori, and Meruru. I was completely dialed in to this universe of excessively frilly outfits, alchemy, and girly anime stereotypes (Yes, my pretty frock fits quite nicely now, thank you). After the wrapping up of this timeline of story, I figured I can finally put this series down. Unfortunately for my masculine pride, they have made a 14th installment of this series.

ATELIER AYESHA:(PS3)

Ayesha Altugle is a young apothecary who resides by herself in a workshop outside of Vizenburg. After the passing of her grandfather and the mysterious disappearance of her younger sister Nio, she makes ends meet by making medicine and selling it to orders taken by her friend and travelling merchant Ernie. She seems content, but is nagged by the uncertainty of what happened to her younger sister. 

While visiting nearby ruins to collect ingredients for her medicine, she visits a makeshift grave for her sister and begins to catch her up on how she has been. As Ayesha goes to leave the flowers in the surrounding area begin to glow and a spectral version of Nio appears and calls out to Ayesha before quickly vanishing.

A wandering alchemist by the name of Keithgriff witnesses this scene and tells Ayesha that alchemy can unlock the secret to this phenomenon and if she wants to save her sister, she must learn and understand alchemy. With nothing more to go on than that, Ayesha packs up her things on her cow Pana, and sets off for the big city to learn how she can save her sister.

Alright then, so right out of the gate I have to give Atelier Ayesha points for better storytelling than the previous three games. In those three, the goal was basically "hey become a better alchemist because alchemy!" One was to save your shop, one was to be an adventurer, one was to make your kingdom thrive. All fair but from a story line perspective they are kinda weak since the goal was the do it just because. This one at least gives me a clear goal: Your sister vanished and you need this to save her. Much more clear cut and tangible.

This is another marked improvement in the area of story telling because this series has finally gotten away from the annoying still frame reaction poses that has plagued so many NIS America games before it. Now they use the actual character models and give them animations for reactions. Its not the most incredibly advanced move but I thank eff'n Christ its not those awful stills anymore. Those things are like a pass for excessively wordy text. The game at times can get a little cutscene heavy but for the most part all of it can be skipped if you don't care. 

I did have to say I was a bit caught off guard and maybe a bit heartbroken that this game didn't take place in Arland. I got really attached to that universe and those characters, and it was nice to see canonical games where I can watch the characters grow older and mature over time. Now I'm in a whole new area having to learn about all new people. Which isn't bad or anything, I just kinda wanted to see what was happening with the old gang.

The new cast is a bit weaker to be sure. Ayesha is a pretty good protagonist in her constant nativity she almost never seems to come into being the confident hero until right up till the end. Her party doesn't fair much better. You get a 14 year old witch who is work ducking, high energy goofball who is only in your party long enough to get someone else. You get the tomboyish pretty girl who plays the best friend angle, you have two tank characters who are stoic and bland in their personality. Finally you have the grumpy old man who plays reluctant father figure to Ayesha. None are awful and they have their moments, but they don't seem as dynamic as the previous cast.

Wilbell can be annoying, but with the right gear? Teaming her with Linca and
Ayesha can produce probably the best balanced team in the game very early.

Like the previous Atelier games, you have a pretty arbitrary time limit to complete as much as the game as you can, and how you do affects the ending you receive for it. I don't much mind it this way because it means you can play through the game quickly, and still be interested enough to keep playing it and seeing the other endings. I have never completed all of them but it gives me a reason to keep coming back. Also, if you've played a few of this series before you know exactly what to do to proceed quickly.

Although perhaps not totally, as they made a number of subtle changes throughout most of the games execution. You still need to try to create every alchemy recipe you need to get your hands on, but instead of going to some central location and taking in all the missions you can handle, instead you just wander towns and people give you requests to fill out for memory points. You don't seem to NEED to fulfill them, but it does give you points to use in your journal which gets you stat increases, so just try to keep a little of everything when you make it. 

Alchemy is a little more complex this time around. Its intimidating to learn but
when you get the hang of it, you can make some pretty powerful stuff. 

I also found objectives very unclear as well, you have tasks and goals. Wish I could tell you what makes it any different. It took me almost the whole length of the game to realize certain ones were marked to progress the the story, all though some of them aren't exactly clear either. Generally if you just make sure you clear all the monsters on your first pass, and pick each search point when you go through, it'll grossly cut down on the goals list.

They took away weapon and armor creation in this game (or at least it seemed to me). This kinda sucked because in New Game+ mode you get to keep your money and equipped items. It basically allowed you to fly through the early stages of the game when you replay so you can quickly get back to where you finished the last game and further expand on it. Now most of your equipment is dropped in rather abundance, but most of the changes always seem negligible.

When you finish a story point, you unlock a memory.
When you put it in your journal, you get a major stat increase.

The way to really beef the gear you find up is to create stones or dyes to move stats onto your weapons. I was never really good at this, but there is a tutorial out there that gives you the steps to many any weapon some divine weapon of vengeance that basically allows your team to rip enemies asunder. Once I did this bosses I couldn't beat became almost laughably easy.

I'm always a fan of the music in these games. Its usually just a fairly generic blend of classical/folk styles of music with the occasional bit of rock sprinkled in for the battles, but in every game there is always a handful of songs that are super memorable to me. I find myself humming it hours after I have complete the game. And while this one didn't have the bad ass Guilty Gear style metal Atelier Meruru had, there are some pretty reasonable exchanges. 

One of the later boss fights (I believe the final, actually) has this very slow paced kinda sad melody you hear through most of the game, only this time with vocal accompaniment. Since you hear the song through most of the adventure it's pretty fresh in your head when the fight starts, and it just overlays this feeling of sadness that adds this wonderful weight to the story telling. The fight still manages to be tense while at the same time brings a powerful poignancy to the overall situation. It was exceptionally done and is a shining example of proper ambiance to story telling.  If you don't mind a bit of a sappier sounding song, give it a listen.

For the most part, the combat hasn't drastically changed but there are a couple of key difference. You still have a part of three and your characters still only learn like 3 or 4 abilities. You can still use your team to jump in front of you and take a hit, or follow up an attack. But the two major changes I noticed were one: when the hero goes down, the fight doesn't end. That was always very annoying in Totori and I'm glad to see you get a fighting chance.

The other big change to battle is now you have the option to move around the battle field a bit. You can do this on your turn or with follow up attacks. It allows you to get back attacks for additional damage, and by scattering you can avoid big area of effect attacks. Naturally there, the trade off is you can't really block damage for another character. It adds an extra level of strategy to the game and I enjoyed it, but this is still dying for an auto-fight button for more tedious fights. Its pretty standard as turn based combat is concerned, but it just rings of that classic old school JRPG format I love.

Its usually around here I have some kind of comment about how the game is somewhat average and it will find a niche audience, or that you should pick it up if you are already a fan. But as I look at game central in my room, I have Hitman: Absolution, Tomb Raider, and God of War: Ascension all sitting on my TV stand, and yet even getting two endings I plan on playing more Atelier Ayesha.

If I had to complain about something, I would say that there is never really a clear villain or antagonist in these games. There is always some massive monster you have to fight at some point, but its usually pulled  right out of the story's ass with virtually no build up going into it. I'm happy to have boss fights and many of them are pretty cool looking. It just would have been nice to have some of the hero's tale leading up to it. Learn what happened to her sister, learn about monster holding her, and how to approach it. That would make sense to me. Basically all you know is that its alchemic relic from a time before, and then its right into the fight.

Really, the biggest complaint (to most people) is that its a pretty standard JRPG. To me? that isn't a fault. But knowing this dovakin shouting, 90 minute countryside walking around, first person borefest western RPG generation we've become? That is exactly the reason why people hate these games. Hell, one online magazine gave it a review without even playing it. Battles are turn based and come and go, it gets a bit repetitive since its item creation. Much of the locations to explore are fairly linear. I know these are things people bitch about but it doesn't bother me in this.

I guess (?) you could say Keithgriff is the antagonist because hes a bit of a dick.
But he is definitely not a villain.

I seriously have no idea this overly girly, simple, kind of repetitive, and incredibly short series of RPGS managed to work its way into my brain, especially when I didn't even like it at first. But goddamn it, there is something this formula that makes it work. It has that same addictive quality just like the previous 3 have that just prevent me from putting it down. That is a quality a lot of triple-A games just don't have these days. As mentioned before, I got a stack of em sitting their waiting to be played and I keep going back to this. 

Whatever it is, this game has me tightly wrapped by the heart strings. Atelier Ayesha is a fun addition to this already lengthy series of games and they seem to have the formula down to make introverted shmucks like me jump at the drop of a hat to buy it. If in another 6-8 months from now another country in the Atelier universe needs alchemy? I will gladly done my prettiest alchemy attire, grab my basket, and will eagerly get weed picking with a new alchemist for their adventure.

My parents must be so disappointed in me... :(

Tomb Raider (PS3): A Change of Heart.

When worked at Blockbuster as a teen, I subscribed to a fledgling 99 cent game magazine called Incite gamer. Cool interviews, fun to read, inexpensive. In the first issue, I sent a card in for a chance to win a free game. Surprisingly, I received a brand new shiny copy of Tomb Raider 3 just before that magazine went under.  I was not good at this game. I could not figure out where to go, what to do, or how to stay alive.

So we parted ways. People played the series and it never bothered me. But what did bother me, is I was a big fan of the Fear Effect games. I was anxiously awaiting the 3rd installment of it. The problem is Eidos put in all their eggs with Tome Raider: Angel of Darkness. A game so horrendously bad it almost closed Eidos for good and thus dashing my dreams of ever continuing with the Fear Effect franchise as many projects got scrapped as a result. I swore an undying hate for the series from then on.

However, a series of trailers and footage videos of the series reboot really started to catch my attention and was giving me crazy urges to try it... Can we come to terms and meet at a middle ground? We shall see.

TOMB RAIDER:(PS3)

Our reboot begins with a very young Lara Croft (gotta be age 16-21) on a boating expedition to make her mark on the world and find the lost Japanese island of Yamatai. We start off In Medias Res with their ship being violently thrashed in a storm as their boat splits apart. After a few close calls with drowning she finally washes ashore and tries to rejoin her group, only to get sucker punched and knocked out.

Lara awakes to find herself bound upside down in some apparent flesh sack around similarly draped dead bodies and skulls around demonic looking altars. She shakes herself to freedom but impales her side on her landing and tries to make an escape to ground. As she tries to escape the cave starts to cave in on her and it becomes a desperate race to sunlight, some unknown set of hands keeps grabbing for her and screams for her to stop. After narrowly escaping the cave in, she returns to ground and starts searching for the rest of her crew to find a way off the island.

Since this is the first Tomb Raider that Square Enix has been a part of, some of their tells were very apparent to me right from the onset. It's always been a bit Squenix thing to start off in the middle of the action, and story focus here is definitely apparent. As you play through the earlier segments it back tracks to before the boat wreck through video logs with Lara's college roommate, Samantha. You find that Lara is pushing expedition from the bottom despite celebrity archaeologist Dr. Whitman's protests, and Sam is trying to make sure she gets her credit for it.

I definitely liked that it started with sequence that grabbed my attention in the first place. That original E3 trailer starts with that whole flesh sack segment and honestly I had no idea it was a Tomb Raider game until the trailer had ended. As I've complained about lately, nobody seems to do survival horror right so I see settings like this and I'm drawn like a moth to a flame.

Shit like this starts the game off on the right foot with me

The first actual kinda "game" segment works as kind of a tutorial where Lara goes around open maps and tries to survive. You set up camp, find a bow and arrows, and do some hunting. Which pretty much got me right in the correct mindset to play this game. The game industry seems to really be pushing the bow and arrow mechanic and its super fun here. More so than that, they do a pretty good job of using this segment to kind of characterize that Lara is not the same we've known from previous Tomb Raider games. She comes off as weak, frightened, and vulnerable.

It fails to hold water for long though because you find that the island is overrun with kind of a cultish militia. They are armed from everything from bows, pistols, automatic rifles, and explosives. They aren't looking to make friends either. The game quickly shifts to 3rd person shooter style combat. With only a limited number of weapons with cover for fire fights and I already hear Uncharted ringing in the back of my head. Although that's probably not the most fair comparison....

See, despite the fact that this game is knee deep in the cover based shooting mechanic I find this to be one of the few situations where it actually works. One girl with a bow vs an unknown number of people with guns. It makes sense she would take cover. On top of that, there is no real button for getting into and out of cover.  If Lara gets close to a place where she can take cover she just naturally crouches down. I still have freedom to move and run without feeling handcuffed to the walls like I sometimes felt Uncharted does.

But more so than that, it adds a much bigger stealth element to the game which as we know I am a big fan off. In Uncharted, you usually can sneak around and make one kill before the bullets start flying. In Tomb Raider you are able to slink around, pick off one guy with an arrow, change position, sneak behind someone and kill them before their buddy turns around. The game does make you pay for it when you fuck up though. when stealthing you need to kill only a few. If you are noticed, some of the fights seem like they can go on forever with the amount of reinforcements that come in.

And while perhaps it is a bit more linear than most Tomb Raider games usually are, it still provides you big open maps to explore and climb around on. Usually for stupid item collection, but it at least didn't give me the inclination that I was just following a predetermined path from one cutscene to the next. It made exploration interesting and fun to do. And for you Tomb Raider regulars it affords you plenty of opportunities to make a leap of faith, miss a ledge, bounce off the rock wall on the way down before being impaled on the jagged rocks below.

That being said, there were points in the game were it felt like Lara was trying to "Out-Uncharted" Nathan Drake. There is one ridiculous mid-game sequence where a couple of things start blowing up and you run through no joke 8 floors of explosions above and below ground. Enemies logically are running for their lives instead of shooting at you, but as this was taking place I was just scratching my head at the ridiculousness of the whole thing. "How the fuck can this entire place still be blowing up???"

You have no idea how long this sequence goes....

Speaking of ridiculous I am fairly sure I am fucking going to hell for this game. Not for the constant killing of my fellow man, or harm to helpless woodland animals. But for the nonstop snuff film I am subjected to every time you die. Its bad enough I fall from high ledges with bone shattering crunches when I hit the ground, but there are a number of hideously visceral death sequences that are so cringe worthy I feel like I am watching a snuff film. God of War could take a hint from this game. If you aren't squeamish DavidTheBarbarian1 made a video of all the major death animations. Some repeat, but it might be the most brutal 4 minutes of gaming violence ever. 

It's not just the deaths either, Lara gets the shit kicked out of her this whole game. If you are not controlling the action, you can count on something stabbing her, punching her, biting her and so forth. It creates this huge controversy of gender politics. Some people think the game goes too far with violence against a female protagonist, others think its realistic considering her overall size and stature vs the given odds and situation. Ladies might find this incarnation of Lara empowering as she defies the odds, others might get indignant from all the abuse she takes. Personally, I think she was asking for it for straying too far away from the kitchen. (Joking people, dial it back before the hate mail starts.)

If I had to make some complaints about it, I would say its biggest flaw is the Multiplayer. First off, I don't think it needs to be there. Its pretty basic: a free for all game, a team death match, a CTF variant where survivors need to steal fuel tanks. They are all entertaining and I don't need a fucking online pass to play it, but the frame rate in them are abysmal.

All of the maps have some active rain or snow taking place so it looks cool, but as soon as I start shooting the frame rate drops down to about the speed of a PowerPoint presentation. It quite literally makes the game unplayable. Do the devs not test this and realize that? Maybe this is just a problem because I bought the PlayStation 3 version, but that should be a non factor. The game should be designed to run smoothly. Maybe this is something they can patch but I'm sure I'll move on to a new game before they do. 

My other issue with the online is the stupid ranking system. These really need to go away. All it does is give the high level people more shit than new players, and the shitty online communities will just load up the experienced players on one side and proceed to thrash new players, if they don't they kick them. Its bull shit.  If you insist on keeping this system, public rooms should have an auto balancing system so teams are divided up between new and experienced players. I think that'd make a more satisfying experience for everyone. 

Don't get me wrong, It looks awesome. But the hardware just can't handle it in multiplayer.

Another complaint is a lack of bonus or end of game content. Going back to the Uncharted example, as you collected items it gave you points to unlock cheats, costumes, or characters. Why couldn't this have been done here? It would give me more incentive to collect everything, and more reason to play though the game multiple times. Forgive the chauvinist in me, but I'm always a little disappointed in a game that has a female protagonist that doesn't have some unlockable french maid outfit (don't judge me). Seriously devs, unlockable costumes are the shit, NOT dlc costumes.

There's only like one actual boss fight too, and its kinda lame. Huge hulking enemy with a weakness exposed on his back? Been done to death.  Thankfully, you have to dodge around him to get a shot off while he's swinging at you. So that is at least a step up from watching him charge into a wall and then you pop shots at him. Still, games like these need to bring back boss fights. The endless stream of regular enemies doesn't make for exciting endings.

My last major complaint is the protagonist. I fucking hate Lara Croft. She is literally in almost every incarnation of her the super powered, huge titted, "Mary Sue" protagonist.  Undying, unbeatable, and completely flawless in every aspect. That's why this new incarnation appealed to me, she didn't want to fight and she was just trying to survive. She seemed realistic and genuine, which in turn makes her relateable as a character to the player.

But then that slowly changed as the game went on. At first she was afraid, not wanting to fight and to sneak around confrontation  Then she starts bantering with her attackers, kind of egging them on and proclaiming she won't lose. OK, she gains a little bit of confidence, I can accept that. But then by the end of the game she's all but calling people out like the raving psycho I've known her to be, and it just completely turns me off to her as a heroine. There is a fight were you fight a guy like 3 times her size, and she's basically shit talking him as they fight. In any real spectrum some massive 8 foot fully armor neanderthal would murder 18 year old archaeological girl. 

They do such a good job characterizing her at first. It makes me crazy that it flips by mid game
I guess it makes sense in the context of the adventure and the need to get stronger, But I found it jarring.

Ultimately though, I found myself surprisingly into Tomb Raider. I came into this game not really wanting to give it a chance and with years of franchise disdain behind me. After a few hours I was completely immersed in slinking around and readying my bow, gradually growing a massive smirk on my face as I'd see my arrow plunk in to the skull of some half witted idiot who never even saw me there.

I never felt lost in this one, but it didn't feel like I was just walking a straight line from set piece to set piece. It blended a lot of the major 3rd person shooter selling points while still allowing it to feel like a Tomb Raider game to me without it aping is previous incarnations. I hate to say this, but I really liked Tomb Raider. Its a reasonably lengthy game and the story was pretty good. Would have liked a bit more after game content but overall it was a very satisfying experience for me and I would recommend it.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to scrub myself down with Lava Soap.

Persona 4 (PS2): I truly am empty inside...

Back when I was in high school (about 15 years and 84lbs ago) I really had a massive affinity for anime. The massive anime buzz hadn't hit yet. There was no Toonami, and I had to wake up at 5am on a Sunday to watch DBZ, a show nobody knew about. But no show resonated with me more than Tenchi Muyo, the story of a socially award guy who has like 6 beautiful alien women fall in love with him. Always gave me hope that despite my nerdiness, I'd find that special someone. (Spoiler alert: that show fucking lied to me.)

But because of this I've never been able to shake my Otaku roots. I don't watch anime like I used to, but I still naturally gravitate to JRPGs knee deep in them like Star Ocean, Tales of {Any}, Final Fantasy and so forth. As you have seen in this blog already, I started to fall for the Persona 4 universe when I played Persona 4 Arena and enhanced it by playing through Persona 3 twice on two platforms. I have since been sporadically been keeping up with Persona 4 and I am ashamed to admit this universe is becoming a bit of an obsession....

PERSONA 4:(PS2/Vita)

Inaba is one of Japan's more rural cities. Its got a high school, a reasonably small shopping district, and lies on a floodplain. The problem is there has been a rash of mysterious murders where bodies are being found hung upside down on television antennas, and with no identifiable cause of death. Around this same time Yu Narukami (renameable) is taking the train in to stay with his uncle Ryotaro Dojima and his daughter Nanako for a year. 

On his way to his first class Yu meets of the son of the Junes megastore owner, Yosuke Hanamura and a friendship is quickly established. This allows Yu to also meet and befriend some of Yosuke's friends: Chie Satonaka and Yukiko Amagi. As they hang out at the food court of Junes after class, Chie askes if Yu has heard of the "Midnight Channel" rumor. Supposedly when you would watch a turned off television at midnight when it rains, it would display your soul mate.

The channel turns out to be real but instead of a soul mate, it appears to displaying the people who are to be murdered next. In a clumsy chance accident, the group discovers they can fall through the screen of a TV and take them to an alternate world where shadows reside. After meeting a friendly shadow named Teddie they discover that when in this TV world, you can be faced with your shadow.

A shadow is a manifestation of of your innermost feelings that you deny and lock away, and if you forsake them it gives them a massive influx of power to become their own identity and kill the original. But if you confront this side of you and accept it, they transform and become your Persona (a manifestation of the Tarot you represent) and will fight for you. After attaining this power, the group decides they will use their new found ability to prevent any further murders and hopefully figure out who is the culprit and bring them to justice.

I hated the Chariot arcana in Persona 3, in 4 MP doesn't stretch is far
which makes chariot arcana's vital to use.

Having played Persona 4 Arena first I was actually a little disappointed to find out that the protagonist was a  silent one in this game. The stories in those games were remarkably long and for the most part fully voice acted and watching the Persona 4 anime was also very entertaining in its own right as well.  But I suppose it makes sense because this was how Persona 3 was played out and I loved the fuck out of that game. 

Persona 4 has one of the most lovable cast of characters I've played in an RPG. Even in games that I completely love there are always a character or two who I just can't stand. I never seem to have this problem in the Persona series maybe because there is nothing really super about them. They are just normal teens with normal teen problems. Cleverly, the whole "facing themselves" aspect is a strong way to make them likable because you pretty much see that they are all flawed.

This scene is faithfully recreated in the anime, and is worth watching the whole thing to get to it.

Its not overly elaborate and emo, not all of them have some tragic heartbreak. Yeah a few of them kind of fall into some anime stereotypes but when every new character was introduced I found it hard not to love them. Probably to the unhealthy level of jealousy of them not actually existing to be my real friends.. I had this problem in Catherine too.. god I need a life.

In terms of play Persona 4 doesn't exactly deviate from its previous iteration all too much but there are some subtle differences.  At its core, its just like Persona 3 it is a combination of Japanese school simulation and dungeon crawling JRPG. The lectures in Persona 4 aren't nearly as long winded as they are in 3 but you still need to pay some attention to them. The main focus is to maintain your social life because the stronger your bonds are with people, the more powerful personas you can create.

Unlike in Persona 3 however, there isn't just one massive tower for you to continuously explore. When you enter the TV world you then can break of into stages where are manifestations of the characters psyches. The levels seem larger on the whole than Persona 3 and the monsters are a bit more sparing, but they are only about 8-9 floors each so you don't feel so intimated needing to climb 200+ floors of tower. You get different settings for each area so the change of pace is great too.

You can tell this is the Vita version by its much more polished looks. 

Combat in Persona 4 has made some subtle improvements to it. It still follows much of the previous Persona protocol of giving you general orders for your teammates so they will fight in a particular style, and if enemy weaknesses are discovered, they will naturally go after them. Just like in the previous game if you hit weaknesses or critical all the enemies off their feet you have the chance to go in for a big all out attack to put them down. 

The biggest difference in Persona 4's combat is probably my most thankful change. Now when you give your characters other specific tactics, you can set them all to direct control which allows you to manually take control of all the other characters  It can slow down some of the combat to a crawl so I don't use it often, but for some of the difficult boss fights in the game its an absolute must.

Hey! Do you like this song?!

I certainly hope so, because if you don't you are going to hate the fucking battle sequences. Now the  Persona series tends to have some music that is all over the gamut such as "Mass Destruction" from the previous game, but with this one I kind of scratch my head at it. Its a decent song and it would work well for a theme or a major plot moment, or maybe even a boss fight. But for every single random battle you come across it just seems horribly awkward and out of place. I think its just the goofy chorus line, and it loops pretty frequently. I know that's pretty common in JRPGs but it hasn't become white noise yet and I have 60 hours in my save....

That being said, I really like the soundtrack for these games, and I certainly liked this ones than 3's. Much of it really seems to fit the setting of the scene and the over world maps music changes ever so often or occasionally isn't there when its raining. You just get the slight rain sound during those moments and I thought that was kind of a nice touch so I wasn't getting hammered to death with all the same music.

The fishing game is pretty simple, But after playing Nier every fishing game is pretty good. 

There are a handful of mild aggravations. Like Persona 3 there are events that happen in fixed intervals, and the wait time between them can be long. You are supposed to use these moments to level up your characters, grind, increase your social links and so forth. I was usually able to march my way though each stage in about a day or 2 of in game time and complete the said goal. This leaves me with like 2 weeks of in game time to burn. I'm supposed to do it to increase social links, but it has the ability to slow the games pace to a crawl.

Atlus must really hate their fans, because much like any other game I have played that says Shin Megami Tensei on the cover, this one's difficulty spike is just as murderous. I didn't play Persona 4 on easy because Persona 3 was a cakewalk on that setting. A few stages in, I was getting smashed by enemies so hard into a stage that I seriously had to consider restarting the whole game to tone it down.You have to choose your team carefully before each area otherwise if you have a weakness monsters will go after it. It's not too difficult, but the game will let you know when you fucked up. Save often.

Kanji is the team's lovable idiot. In both 4 and 4 Arena his dialog is solid gold.

Money is incredibly scarce. You have to fight monsters to get them to drop items, those items allow new weapons and armor to be available. The problem is everything is ridiculously expensive, so you almost never have the money to re-equip your team unless you grind for a few hours. I suppose that's how you stay well leveled, but when you first enter a new stage an ass kicking is eminent.

Many of the maps in the various stages are huge and they aren't packed wall to wall with monsters. On one hand it makes it fairly easy to run and explore and jump through your floors without issue, but as stated above you need to grind your level and get money above all else. Because you have to constantly run there and back to find monsters, grinding can be a bit of a chore. Worse than that the moment you outlevel a certain area? You might as well stop wasting your time there because the experience drops to virtually nothing.

The game kinda can trap you too. I tried to max out my social links by talking to the characters that interested me as a player. What I should have been doing is maxing out of the ones of the types of persona's I used so they can get stronger faster. The big mistake I made was ignoring my Hermit persona, because it makes it less expensive to recover when in the dungeon areas, now I'm at the end of the game and can't recover easily.

This freak'n mutt. If it had told me how important he was I would have paid more attention to it.

While I am not shredding through this game with my usually unhealthy amount of game addiction, I still have managed to put up a ridiculous 74 something hours in this game and I still haven't completed it yet (but I'm right there). I'm sure some of the things I've complained about in this review are some of the reasons some gamers disliked JRPGs (or "idiots" as I like to call them.) But if I can play a pair of games that are nearly 5 and 7 years old respectively for well over 80 hours each time, then that says something.

I have never been so entrenched in a universe like this in a long long time. Tales of {any}, Final Fantasy, Disgaea all have universes I love and are passionate to (too weird?) but the Persona series definitely has me going back to goofy high school roots of falling in love with characters that don't exist and wishing they were my real friends. I've watched through the anime like 3 or 4 times already. I'm fanboying so hard for this series I am considering getting me some yellow contacts, because the shadows look awesome with those.

I'ma frame this and put it on my desk.... Cuz I don't have a picture with actual friends to use.
*sob*

Supposedly in August of 2011 it was announced that Persona 5 is in the works and I hope that its true. Both Persona 3 and 4 had fantastic universes and characters, and Persona 4 Arena did a wonderful job of intermixing the two story lines together. Its my hope that the fifth game picks up where Arena left off since it ended on kind of half cliffhanger, and after introducing the new character Labrys, I would really like to see where that story is looking to go.

Persona 4 is available on PS2 on amazon new for like 18 bucks right now, and if you have a PS Vita Persona 4 Golden is available for 40 (with animated cut scenes, and additional content {those fuckers}). I absolutely recommend this game if you are looking to dust your PS2 off for another 80 hours or so. Its hard for me to believe that almost a year ago (August) I had basically shrugged this series off as too difficult or uninteresting. I'm very glad I went back to it because its proven to be a very satisfying series.

Sadly my love letters Chie Satonaka will go unread.....

Because shes not real... Sigh....