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ZombiePie

To each and every one of you reading this; be kind, earnest, and nice to those around you.

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ZombiePie

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ZombiePie  Staff

I still maintain that the highway chase in Reloaded is the single greatest individual scene or moment in the entire franchise/series. That said, yeah, Revolutions is downright unwatchable.

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ZombiePie

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ZombiePie

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It really is one of the most underrated stories in recent memories, but it's simply amazing how Vtubers and the Steam Deck, as well as its many clones, have basically revived PC Gaming in Japan and made it mainstream in a way not seen since the early Bubble Economy.

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@chamurai said:

Like the text next to Gebelli's photo, "People that don't know who this is are not FF fans."

Thanks! Credit to Rami Ismail reminding me of Gebelli's importance under the backdrop of current events.

I played the DS remake of Final Fantasy III when I was in college and it ruined my life. This will always be the worst mainline FF for me, even if every other version is less incompetent.

The Dragon Quest games were unambiguously better than the FF games in the 8-bit era and at least on par in the 16-bit era, but the west saw almost none of that rivalry play out and Enix gave up in the mid-90's.

Part of what makes Final Fantasy III a rawer deal is the fact that you can't really "break it" like you can in the rest of the 8 to 16 bit Final Fantasy games. Final Fantasy II isn't good, but at least you can cheese it and throw its own mechanics back in its face. You can't do that with Final Fantasy III. All you have is a very vanilla grind-EXP loop that doesn't feel all that great until they very end, and even then, the game caves your teeth in with its final boss.

I don't think I have the constitution to play a crusty classic like this, but I very much enjoy reading your appraisal/analysis!

Also hey I'm the lowpoly pervert that digs the look of the 3D remakes. Yes yes your PS1 horror aesthetics are fine but where are my DS RPGs??

Shout outs to Gebelli!

As I suggested in this blog, I love the DS version of Final Fantasy IV. Maybe a hot take that gets me in trouble with FF fans, but I still prefer the DS 3D Remaster of 4. I like the cutscenes, voice acting, additional character stuff, and added dungeons and mechanics

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@brian_ said:

I completely forgot about this thing. My sicko phase for this type of game was more 5-10 years ago, but the gay romance option has me kind of interested in checking it out. It shouldn't. But the bar is so damn low with games of this elk, that it can't get much worse than what I've already scene.

The bar is low and it doesn't seem to be getting any better! I get that it is largely a coincidence that can be explained in a logical way, but the former Persona director's new game Metaphor: ReFantazio already has a slight red flag.

No Caption Provided

The Japanese goes on to specify the word "Homo" is used to refer to the Latin meaning of "human", but come on... it's a preponderance of evidence.

Seeing as I'm a gay man and like the Persona games, I could see checking this out just for the gay romance options. But... uh... not willing to shell out $30 for the privilege, nor even the $18 required for the current 40% off price of the Steam Winter sale. IDK, for $18 I feel there should be some decent gameplay involved. Fun reading the blog, though!

@brian_ said:

But the bar is so damn low with games of this elk, that it can't get much worse than what I've already scene.

Don't know whether these typos/puns were intentional or not, but either way I applaud you. There are sicko games and then there are sicko sentences, and I approve of both!

So... if/when you play this game and reach the end, you'll discover how much of it was made by one dude. They actually go on to credit themselves for every hat that they wore while making the game (i.e., designer, programmer, writer, direct, etc.) Like, good on them, but given how much of it was made by one person leads me to suspect that they actually need to pocket some milk money before it takes a permanent price cut or explore Game Pass.

Almost got around to this one, but I needed a break from gaming after Armored Core Six, which I saw the credits roll for a third time the day before Eternights launched.

Playing this game was kind of a pallet cleanser for me. Sometimes you need a game where you can turn it on and completely turn off your brain. It's no different than picking up some fast food cheeseburgers after a hard day of work.

YOU'RE WELCOME

No Caption Provided

"Evil taint." Heheheheheheh.

Good to see people of culture see my few attempts at Rated-R humor.

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ZombiePie

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Corpse Party might be the video game industry's closest equivalent to Leni Riefenstahl.

Haha, whoa, now there's an indictment!

Great read! I've indeed been enticed by the game's Styyyyyyyle, but my tolerance for frustrating gameplay is low enough* that I don't think actually playing this is for me. I do enjoy the aesthetics, and that additional endorsement from your sister does make me extra intrigued โ€” if a non-sweaty player can brave the depths, then what excuse do I have?

* and don't say "but you like Dark Souls" i will FIGHT YOU in THE STREETS

@arbitrarywater is the resident Corpse Party expert, but there's no denying that Corpse Party is important and it informed an entire generation of self-published indie horror titles. There are even mainstream horror game developers and writers that have cited it as a source of inspiration.

Nonetheless, it is a deeply flawed work with incredibly troubling themes and messages. I would even go so far as to say it is one of the most repulsive games made.

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Now that notifications appear to be generally working, it is time for me to return to some of the comments posted in older blogs that I avoided for fear they would be send to crickets. So, here we go!

I beat Tactica as my first game with "Persona 5" in its title. Liked it enough to go back to Royal finally. Now about 70 hours into Royal, eye ball deep in the Mijima Palace, I'm mentally in a similar place of fatigue. I am going to beat Royal by hook or crook, but after that Altus is on my black list of company not to conduct business with. Oh, how things are repeated in their titles.

There's something about Royal that feels special that is just completely lacking here. Maybe it is the genre with this spin-off and the fact that I think we are all getting "tactics fatigue." Nonetheless, I don't know how much more you can do with these characters after this. Maybe, you have the cast of Persona 5 do a dancing game or a contextless dungeon crawler. However, beyond that... how many more people can they keep bolting on to the core cast and thinking that's all you need to do?

I'm happy to see someone acknowledging the teen/adult relationships Atlus love putting into their games, even when the game is otherwise tackling issues like student abuse. That so many reviewers seem to completely ignore that and the LGBTQ issues while praising them for their 'socially conscious' writing has always been wild to me. Doesn't really matter if most of the fundue is good if there's a big smelly poo in the center.

It's not just that - the writers at least since 3 have always given me the impression of being conservative 40+ year-olds attempting to write teen stories. When every single major character in 4 ended up doing/being what was expected of them (taking over the inn, staying an idol, being not gay, being more girly etc) while passionately arguing why this is what they actually wanted I was done with the series. Catherine (while I loved the gameplay) was the final nail in the Atlus coffin because that game is just nasty wrt its trans character. It's not even trying to be humorous about it, just nasty.

With the old Persona director that was not at all interested in tackling LGBTQ characters and stories... IT'S TIME TO GET GAY IN PERSONA, AGAIN! The guy who thought there was absolutely nothing wrong with Catherine is gone. Seriously, The people coming into the franchise thanks to Persona 5 are far more open and clamoring for this than maybe we give them credit for. But yeah, characters being gay is a far better alternative to seeing adult wontly go on dates with teens again. Hopefully they understand at this point that they can't do that again.

As a rule I'm generally just not that interested in spinoff games in which the gameplay is something wildly different from the original. I did end up downloading and trying Strikers only because it was a free PS+ game, but I played it for about ten minutes and then had to put it down because the core action gameplay just felt bad to me--and I say this as someone who has purchased about a half-dozen of the Koei Warriors games. And I dismissed Tactica as something I knew I'd have no real interest in; I've been known to like tactics games like FFT and the original X-Com, but this one looked too half-assed gameplay-wise.

All that said, yeah, I don't feel like I need any more with these characters, either. I did play Royal again this past year and really enjoyed myself, but that doesn't mean they need to keep bringing back the same characters for new games.

One wonders how many spin-off titles we'll get with the P3 characters after Reload. I suspect I shall continue to ignore them.

With Reload, all signs point to them doing a bunch of post-game DLC that bolts on new experiences to the core game. A few weeks back a leaker suggested that a version of The Answer is on the way with you controlling Aegis in a post-game dungeon of sorts with a modified version of The Answer's story.

All this points to your theory that this is just a countdown to DLC that sells you the Portable storyline, social links, and female protag spearately looking better and better every day.

@brian_ said:

They should've just made a new Devil Survivor instead.

Honestly, I have never been a fan of any of Atlus' tactics games. I do like the music in the old school Majin Tensei games, though. But they are no fucking fun to play.

@efesell said:

I just kind of hate how this game looks which I find more egregious than I might otherwise when itโ€™s Persona 5 related.

It's not great! The fact the game started off at $60 and has been perpetually on sale ever since its release says a lot about how much they misjudged the market as well. And I haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate the chibi visual novel cutout portraits. The normal visual novel portrait style is so much better and because it is more cartoony, the animated and expressive nature of the portraits is so much worse.

@ben_h said:

I 100% agree. I installed this one through Game Pass but then didn't even start it. On paper I should love this game. I love tactics games. I am a big fan of Persona games. I've even played many of the various Persona spinoffs and enjoyed them (shout out to Persona Q. I enjoyed that one a lot in particular). But when it came time to actually sit down and play this one I just couldn't get myself to do it. I played P5R earlier this year and played some of Strikers after it was put up on PS+. That's on top of playing the original Persona 5. Between all of that I've spent hundreds of hours with these characters and this whole aesthetic. That's more than enough time, especially if they have nothing new to say and no actual development with these characters occurs. I'm good.

I'm good on Persona 5 in general. I think my experience with the original version of the game soured me on everything related to it but obviously I've given it further chances given I've played Royal and Strikers. I remember finishing Persona 5 and hoping that the sixth game would be better but here we are more than half a decade later with Persona 6 nowhere in sight and instead we're getting spinoff after spinoff of what I viewed as the weakest Persona game.

Also yeah, I had sticker shock at the price. As a Game Pass game it's fine but when I saw it was full price to buy (I wanted it for my Steam Deck) I was taken aback. This game has the appearance and apparent scale of a game made on a smaller budget, and I was expecting it to be $40 USD at the most. Sega has even put out other smaller scale games in the cheaper price range recently (See that recent Like A Dragon game) so to see this one priced at $60 honestly made me think that it was a cash grab. Once they get all of the sales from the people who buy anything day one with Persona in the name, they'll drop the price down to something more reasonable.

It seems like almost one month after release, this game constantly is discounted at $45 to $35 which seems a lot more fair, but there's no telling if the game needed its starting premium price tag to cover costs. While I don't think it is an especially great looking game, it still has some interesting production values. But it still might be the worst the world of Persona 5 has ever looked and that's even including the cool DLC which is the best example of the cartoony art style done well in this game.

@av_gamer said:

I haven't played this game yet, despite it being on Game Pass. But I will, as I still like the characters and the universe the game takes place in. But overall, I agree that Atlus is running the well dry with the Phantom Thieves and need to move on to Persona 6 already. The problem is, like with GTA Online, once something starts making a lot of money, it's hard for these developers to let that go and take another chance, even if it's just a sequel to their own successful series. Love it or hate it, Persona 5 has done more for Atlus than Persona's 3 and 4 have ever done. Hence, why we are getting all of these spinoffs.

I think Reload is going to end up being a way longer commitment than what fans think it is. I am going to even go so far as to say I think Atlus will treat it as if they released a mainline numbered game in the series, and tack on micro-expansions and cross-over attention to extend its lifespan as they have with every other mainline game release in the series. All of that is to say, it might be another console generation before we see another numbered Persona game.

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ZombiePie

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Just finished my goty list. https://www.giantbomb.com/profile/totalpatoot/lists/top-5-games-that-i-played-of-2023/375208/.

Pretty happy with it and my graphic I made for this year's. ๐Ÿ˜„

Great I have you at the top of the GOTY user list section for the next episode!

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It really is such a great game aside from some of the parts where it tries really hard to be a video game. Like you said, so many games try to do this 90s anime aesthetic, but I've never seen anything else pull it off this well, especially not while also bringing a lot of their own unique aesthetics and charm along with it.

Things are even rougher with this developer's earlier works as they are programmed entirely through RPG Maker and my tolerance for the kludge in platforming in RPG Maker joints is next to nothing these days.

Otherwise, I ended up recommending this game to my sister who is a massive visual novel fan and they, expectedly love the game, but need to have her husband complete all of the dungeon sequences. It's not necessarily the puzzles that get her, as she's pretty good at puzzles in general. It's the chase sequences, punishing timing on the minigames, and trial-and-error gameplay that is getting her. It's a pain for me, but an absolute deal breaker for her. And yet, she loves the visuals and story so much that she's still trudging along. No idea if she will finish it, but it says a lot that this game is special enough that a self-avowed "non-gamer" is slopping through it to see an ending or two.

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@marino said:

Admittedly, I had never heard of the game until I asked the other mods to submit lists to me. But, we have been recognized by the lead writer of the game. It does not appear on any other guest lists.

No Caption Provided

HISTORY SHALL VINDICATE THIS LIST!

@ogto said:

based moderators, puttin PARANORMASIGHT in the top 10

I REGRET NOTHING! Also, many thanks to @mento and @chaser324 assisting my pro-Visual Novel agenda on this list!