Best of 2017
A fine year for games even with the disappointments and perhaps a few overrated releases. I find myself way behind on the games I want to play... there's just been a lot of other things going on this year...
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Persona proves once again to be the brightest star in the dimming sky of the JRPG genre. A perfect soundtrack that never gets old. A visual style that permeates every inch and puts literally every other game to shame. A combat system that's turn-based yet fuckin' moves. A cast of characters that compares even to the most beloved of past games. And a story that tackles real personal drama, societal ills, and that epic anime shit too.
In terms of flaws, the localization clearly falls short of the loving effort that obviously went into Persona 4. I think it may be impossible to recapture the magic of the P4 localization, but there really is no excuse for mishandling a game of this caliber. The English script badly needed some kind of readability pass before going to VO. The voice cast as well, while not at all bad, doesn't hold up against P4's, and perhaps that also would be impossible given that even P4G lost some of P4's best talent.
Localization aside, team bonding events, trips, meetups etc are fewer and shorter, and while many of these were redundant in P4, it feels like P4 took more time to flesh out the bonds between each character. There may be a trade-off however in that big story events are more frequent and more substantial. Either way any dearth of fun superfluous events could be addressed with an expansion similar to FES or Golden.. OMG PLEASE YES!!
In terms of mechanics, there is only 1 issue in the entire game, the frustratingly restrictive camera when hiding. This is a strange decision which could be fixed simply by allowing the camera to spin freely.
One huge change for the better to the series formula that cannot be overstated is the introduction of hand-crafted dungeons. The inclusion of a vast and repeatable randomized dungeon is great for gathering loot and filling your Poke-Dex, but designer dungeons with unique mechanics are actually exciting to explore and feel less disconnected from the story. Similarly, confidants (s.links) now give distinctive and game-changing rewards as you rank them up. Where P4 (and P3) often felt like 2 unrelated games jammed together (social sim and dungeon crawl), this is much less the case with P5.
To sum up, Persona 5 is a hit, a real next-gen Persona, it was worth the wait.. except I hate waiting, fuck waiting, gimme the next one!
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Goddamn gorgeous game. World, story, dialogue, combat, etc; everything is near-perfectly executed. The best part being its unapologetically feminist heroine, who is smart, compassionate, cute, and kickass. A Mary Sue that earns it. Practically, girl-Jesus.
P.S. The premise (as it reveals itself throughout the game) makes me nostalgic for the mainstream yet conscientious science fiction of my 90s childhood; obviously not an accident given the major homage to Captain Planet's nature spirit, Gaia.
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Andromeda is far from a masterpiece, but bugs and rough edges aside, it is almost precisely what I want out of a game. There's a lot of hyperbole out there but the game would obviously benefit from better writing, better character design, better animations, and most of all more QA time. The bottom line is I want more like this and I hope the reaction doesn't have a chilling effect on expansive open world RPGs.
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A masterpiece on the PS2 (with some caveats).
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Someone gave me a Switch.. will I actually play it?
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