IPPGFTS Special Report: GotY 2012

End of the year top 10 games lists usually just put into stark contrast how I play games compared to others. Not in the sense that my lists are dramatically different, but more in the fact that I usually don't have anything to actually put on the lists themselves. My tact of practically storing games means I usually actually play games 2 or 3 years after their release year, and thus when it comes time to compile a list, nothing is released in the right year. This year, however, I was a little better at it, and the fight for the prestigious title of “liked by that dude who plays porn games” turned into quite the bloodbath. But before I get to that, here are the games I played this year that I really enjoyed and in a just world would have made it on my 2011 list.

Saints Row: The Third

I really liked Saints Row: The Third, and I'm really glad I finally got a laptop capable of actually running it. The open world genre isn't really one I enjoy all that much due to various reasons, but for some reason Saints Row managed to hook me in a way I didn't think was possible. Some really annoying problems with the ending, however, stopped me from enjoying it to its fullest, and I have somewhere on my computer a 2000+ word blog entry that I was going to post which talks about game design and why the ending of Saints Row: The Third fell flat on its face for me. But I digress, at least it's better than Skyrim.

Sonic Generations

Sonic Generations is a great Sonic game, a phrase hardly anyone says anymore. The levels have a great mixture of 'inspired by'-esque remix qualities of the original games, and straight up taking the best elements from the original games. The different challenges they have for each level also gives a great spin on the core gameplay, some are better than others, but it's a great small addition that adds a lot. Also the online, when it works which is rarely, has a really awesome mode called 30 Second Trial, in which you have to get as far in the level as you can in 30 seconds. A seemingly simple mode but with the online leaderboards it's almost genius in how it works.

Driver San Francisco

What might be my favourite racing game to date. Driver San Francisco has a fantastic style to it with the whole coma aesthetic, and managed to tie it all together in a really amazing way. The ending suffers from Assassin's Creed's problem, however, of having to remove features because the main character wakes from the coma. A completely unavoidable problem when its all said and done but a problem nonetheless.

So without any further ado...

10. Analogue: A Hate Story

Appropriately, the first game in my list is a visual novel. Christine Love, creator of Digital: A Love Story and It Just Ain't Your Story returned this year with a 3rd visual novel. It stars a nameless main character on a mission to find an abandoned spaceship, where you find AIs that are still active. The story is primarily told in the form of data logs of the deceased crew, with some feedback and perspective from the AIs on board. It's rather minimalistic, which adds a lot more than it detracts. It's short, taking me roughly 3 hours to see every ending, and yet manages to back really interesting story beats in its short timeframe.

9. Sound Shapes

I'll admit I wasn't really feeling this game before its release, but hell I needed games to play on my Vita and it was either this or Everybody's Golf so fuck it. A platformer with music elements, but not necessarily rhythm based, that maintains its interesting premise and feel throughout the entire game. Some of the 'challenge' rooms are rather bullshit, simply due to an incredibly short time frame accompanied by random elements, but that pales in comparison to the reason it's on this list, and that's Beck.

When I got to this level I was blown away in ways I didn't think I would be. It's the perfect combination of an excellent look, great music and a progression that compliments the song so much that no matter how well or terribly you're playing the game, the song still works perfectly (though admittedly Turboman is really testing that theory in that video (love you man)). It's the moment in the game that really shows off everything working incredibly well. While a lot of the other levels get close, the experience of that alone really made me appreciate what they set out to accomplish with this game.

8. Paper Mario: Sticker Star

It's not as good as Thousand Year Door, in fact it's the worst Paper Mario game to date. Yet that really shows you how much I absolutely love this series and how high quality all of these games are that it's still one of my favourites of the year.

The battles feel more like a puzzle game than RPG, working out how to beat each battle without getting hit, and sure I miss the companions, but this is still Paper Mario, in fact in some ways it's the most Paper Mario yet. Instead of worried they're get 'hurt', the Toads are worried they'll tear, Toads fold in on themselves to form stairs, the opening of the game the main hub has been rolled up in a tube. They really lean into the fact that everything is paper and cardboard, instead of it just happening to be the aesthetic in the past games. If you love Intelligent System's style of game design and the Treehouse's amazing localisations (which is in full effect here) then by all means check this game out. Just don't expect a straight RPG, it's more akin to an RPG/Adventure hybrid.

7. Journey

When most people consider what the best way to play Journey is, I'm pretty sure none of them would suggest that hour long period in between really drunk and really hungover at roughly 6am, but that's how I played it! At a house party during the summer when most people were asleep, my “Fuck it let's play Journey” mode activated and I'm really glad it did. I got to the game rather late, and my friend had only beaten it once before, so in the 2nd 'level' or so I met up with this super golden dude with a long ass scarf. He ended up leading me to all the secrets, and was pretty much my tour guide for the world of Journey. Frankly, in my state, that was absolutely perfect. The game is stunning, the music is incredibly and the atmosphere in every single place is exquisite. By the time I beat the game and the credits started to roll, it turns out that my golden tour guide was actually 4 different golden tour guides, all of them saw my character and its dinky scarf and decided to take it on an adventure throughout an amazing world. The people playing will never know it, but they made that experience all the more special because of it.

6. Katawa Shoujo

Watching this game rise from the ashes of its existence into its final product was what, I presumed, would be the most interesting part about Katawa Shoujo. Yet somehow the actual visual novel itself surpassed all expectations and actually turned out to be amazing. A lot of people were surprised by how the game handled the different disabilities, in that the characters weren't reduced to just that, as if before release the general reaction to this game would be that it'd literally be the worst piece of shit every produced by any human beings in the world ever.

Well it is a visual novel, after all, only freaks play those.

There's a lot to be said about this game but it's all been said already, Katawa Shoujo is an amazing story and I'd recommend anyone to check it out.

5. Hotline Miami

4. Gravity Rush

Part one in my answer to “So should I get a Vita?” Gravity rush is an amazing game that shows off the handheld's strengths incredibly well. A great and interesting main character in Kat, a really expansive world, and a story that leaves enough things open to allow you to pieces parts of the puzzle together yourself. Honestly, that's the reason it's here. The story and the universe it creates is so interesting that it really gives off an amazing atmosphere while playing. Enough clues are placed in the main story and in side quest objectives to give you a great understanding of the bigger picture, but when you actually piece it all together it's really incredible, and the connotations it gives for more games or even stories set in this universe make this easily one of my favourite video game worlds in recent memory. The actual game itself is also fun for the most part, with the combat really being its only main drag, with a lot of different mechanics that all manage to compliment each other well, but I believe it's the story and the setting that is the main draw here.

3. Persona 4 Golden

Part two in my answer to “So should I get a Vita?” Obviously you should, so you can buy this game that was released on the PS2 a few years ago. I fucking love Persona 4, ok, it was my favourite RPG game of all time by a wide margin. I sunk over 500 hours into it, playing it 8 or 9 times total, and somehow the made it better with Golden. Since this website is rather uniquely familiar with Persona 4, I'll just list some of the ways they made it better.

The fishing has been completely redone and is actually fun this time.

They re-added all the shit they removed from Persona 3 that they shouldn't've.

The shuffle time card system has been completely revamped and it makes playing the game with only one persona actually a viable option which is awesome.

They added bugging catching and gardening and they don't take up time so you can do them whenever.

They added a bunch of ways for your teammates to remember moves you've deleted, or learn brand new random ones.

They rebalanced the teammate abilities, i.e. “Take a mortal blow” is moved from level 1 Social Link to level 9.

The new character Marie is surprisingly awesome, fits in well with the story.

MOTHERFUCKING ADACHI SOCIAL LINK IS SO FUCKING BOSS HOLY SHIT.

AND SO ARE THE NEW ENDINGS

FUCK THIS GAME IS SO GOOD

So yeah this is a pretty great version of Persona 4, it's number 3 on this list only because it is a re-release, it's probably top 3 in my favourite games of all time at this point.

2. Eiyuu*Senki

So this game is really silly, and that's why I love it so. Take all the horrible and fearsome leaders of history and turn them into anime girls, and you've got this game. You start in Japan and then conquer the entire world, meeting such people as anime girl Ivan the Terrible, anime girl Sir Francis Drake and anime girl King Arthur. The stories are usually based on the actual country you're fighting at any given time America is in a civil war between the north and south, southern Asia is Journey to the West, and so on. The actual gameplay is split up between talking to your commanders and raising they standing with you in very dating sim kind of fashion, and the actual battles, 3x3 grid of commanders attacking the enemy, in which the commander's health also serves as their attack power. Battles are won and money is got, which can be spent of increasing the army sizes of the commanders, and so on and so forth. The story only gets crazier and crazier once you've taken over the entire world, and without a doubt it's the sillies and best thing I've read this year.

The game was also announced for PS3 and Vita since its PC release, lets hope for a translation release because more people have to be witness to this incredible stupidity.

1. The Walking Dead

Fuck this game. Rmanthorp and I would always talk about how impossible it'd be to actually play all five episodes in a row, and I agree. Usually I'd wait for all episodes to be released and then play Telltale games, but this time I was advised to jump in with only 3 episodes released, to give myself time to recover for the next two. I should also point out, after I beat the game, Rmanthorp apologised for recommending the game to me at all.

I guess that's the best way to talk about this game, it's by apologising. The entire game you're wishing it went different, and it then tricks you into thinking everything was your fault. Not a single thing happened in which I felt good about what I had to do, or what I was going to have to do. The game makes you think there are black and white choices, slowly turns them into shades of grey, when all along everything is pure black.

Fuck this game.

And there you go you can rest easy now that you know my opinion on videogames.

End of the year top 10 games lists usually just put into stark contrast how I play games compared to others. Not in the sense that my lists are dramatically different, but more in the fact that I usually don't have anything to actually put on the lists themselves. My tact of practically storing games means I usually actually play games 2 or 3 years after their release year, and thus when it comes time to compile a list, nothing is released in the right year. This year, however, I was a little better at it, and the fight for the prestigious title of “liked by that dude who plays porn games” turned into quite the bloodbath. But before I get to that, here are the games I played this year that I really enjoyed and in a just world would have made it on my 2011 list.

Saints Row: The Third

I really liked Saints Row: The Third, and I'm really glad I finally got a laptop capable of actually running it. The open world genre isn't really one I enjoy all that much due to various reasons, but for some reason Saints Row managed to hook me in a way I didn't think was possible. Some really annoying problems with the ending, however, stopped me from enjoying it to its fullest, and I have somewhere on my computer a 2000+ word blog entry that I was going to post which talks about game design and why the ending of Saints Row: The Third fell flat on its face for me. But I digress, at least it's better than Skyrim.

Sonic Generations

Sonic Generations is a great Sonic game, a phrase hardly anyone says anymore. The levels have a great mixture of 'inspired by'-esque remix qualities of the original games, and straight up taking the best elements from the original games. The different challenges they have for each level also gives a great spin on the core gameplay, some are better than others, but it's a great small addition that adds a lot. Also the online, when it works which is rarely, has a really awesome mode called 30 Second Trial, in which you have to get as far in the level as you can in 30 seconds. A seemingly simple mode but with the online leaderboards it's almost genius in how it works.

Driver San Francisco

What might be my favourite racing game to date. Driver San Francisco has a fantastic style to it with the whole coma aesthetic, and managed to tie it all together in a really amazing way. The ending suffers from Assassin's Creed's problem, however, of having to remove features because the main character wakes from the coma. A completely unavoidable problem when its all said and done but a problem nonetheless.

So without any further ado...

10. Analogue: A Hate Story

Appropriately, the first game in my list is a visual novel. Christine Love, creator of Digital: A Love Story and It Just Ain't Your Story returned this year with a 3rd visual novel. It stars a nameless main character on a mission to find an abandoned spaceship, where you find AIs that are still active. The story is primarily told in the form of data logs of the deceased crew, with some feedback and perspective from the AIs on board. It's rather minimalistic, which adds a lot more than it detracts. It's short, taking me roughly 3 hours to see every ending, and yet manages to back really interesting story beats in its short timeframe.

9. Sound Shapes

I'll admit I wasn't really feeling this game before its release, but hell I needed games to play on my Vita and it was either this or Everybody's Golf so fuck it. A platformer with music elements, but not necessarily rhythm based, that maintains its interesting premise and feel throughout the entire game. Some of the 'challenge' rooms are rather bullshit, simply due to an incredibly short time frame accompanied by random elements, but that pales in comparison to the reason it's on this list, and that's Beck.

When I got to this level I was blown away in ways I didn't think I would be. It's the perfect combination of an excellent look, great music and a progression that compliments the song so much that no matter how well or terribly you're playing the game, the song still works perfectly (though admittedly Turboman is really testing that theory in that video (love you man)). It's the moment in the game that really shows off everything working incredibly well. While a lot of the other levels get close, the experience of that alone really made me appreciate what they set out to accomplish with this game.

8. Paper Mario: Sticker Star

It's not as good as Thousand Year Door, in fact it's the worst Paper Mario game to date. Yet that really shows you how much I absolutely love this series and how high quality all of these games are that it's still one of my favourites of the year.

The battles feel more like a puzzle game than RPG, working out how to beat each battle without getting hit, and sure I miss the companions, but this is still Paper Mario, in fact in some ways it's the most Paper Mario yet. Instead of worried they're get 'hurt', the Toads are worried they'll tear, Toads fold in on themselves to form stairs, the opening of the game the main hub has been rolled up in a tube. They really lean into the fact that everything is paper and cardboard, instead of it just happening to be the aesthetic in the past games. If you love Intelligent System's style of game design and the Treehouse's amazing localisations (which is in full effect here) then by all means check this game out. Just don't expect a straight RPG, it's more akin to an RPG/Adventure hybrid.

7. Journey

When most people consider what the best way to play Journey is, I'm pretty sure none of them would suggest that hour long period in between really drunk and really hungover at roughly 6am, but that's how I played it! At a house party during the summer when most people were asleep, my “Fuck it let's play Journey” mode activated and I'm really glad it did. I got to the game rather late, and my friend had only beaten it once before, so in the 2nd 'level' or so I met up with this super golden dude with a long ass scarf. He ended up leading me to all the secrets, and was pretty much my tour guide for the world of Journey. Frankly, in my state, that was absolutely perfect. The game is stunning, the music is incredibly and the atmosphere in every single place is exquisite. By the time I beat the game and the credits started to roll, it turns out that my golden tour guide was actually 4 different golden tour guides, all of them saw my character and its dinky scarf and decided to take it on an adventure throughout an amazing world. The people playing will never know it, but they made that experience all the more special because of it.

6. Katawa Shoujo

Watching this game rise from the ashes of its existence into its final product was what, I presumed, would be the most interesting part about Katawa Shoujo. Yet somehow the actual visual novel itself surpassed all expectations and actually turned out to be amazing. A lot of people were surprised by how the game handled the different disabilities, in that the characters weren't reduced to just that, as if before release the general reaction to this game would be that it'd literally be the worst piece of shit every produced by any human beings in the world ever.

Well it is a visual novel, after all, only freaks play those.

There's a lot to be said about this game but it's all been said already, Katawa Shoujo is an amazing story and I'd recommend anyone to check it out.

5. Hotline Miami

4. Gravity Rush

Part one in my answer to “So should I get a Vita?” Gravity rush is an amazing game that shows off the handheld's strengths incredibly well. A great and interesting main character in Kat, a really expansive world, and a story that leaves enough things open to allow you to pieces parts of the puzzle together yourself. Honestly, that's the reason it's here. The story and the universe it creates is so interesting that it really gives off an amazing atmosphere while playing. Enough clues are placed in the main story and in side quest objectives to give you a great understanding of the bigger picture, but when you actually piece it all together it's really incredible, and the connotations it gives for more games or even stories set in this universe make this easily one of my favourite video game worlds in recent memory. The actual game itself is also fun for the most part, with the combat really being its only main drag, with a lot of different mechanics that all manage to compliment each other well, but I believe it's the story and the setting that is the main draw here.

3. Persona 4 Golden

Part two in my answer to “So should I get a Vita?” Obviously you should, so you can buy this game that was released on the PS2 a few years ago. I fucking love Persona 4, ok, it was my favourite RPG game of all time by a wide margin. I sunk over 500 hours into it, playing it 8 or 9 times total, and somehow the made it better with Golden. Since this website is rather uniquely familiar with Persona 4, I'll just list some of the ways they made it better.

The fishing has been completely redone and is actually fun this time.

They re-added all the shit they removed from Persona 3 that they shouldn't've.

The shuffle time card system has been completely revamped and it makes playing the game with only one persona actually a viable option which is awesome.

They added bugging catching and gardening and they don't take up time so you can do them whenever.

They added a bunch of ways for your teammates to remember moves you've deleted, or learn brand new random ones.

They rebalanced the teammate abilities, i.e. “Take a mortal blow” is moved from level 1 Social Link to level 9.

The new character Marie is surprisingly awesome, fits in well with the story.

MOTHERFUCKING ADACHI SOCIAL LINK IS SO FUCKING BOSS HOLY SHIT.

AND SO ARE THE NEW ENDINGS

FUCK THIS GAME IS SO GOOD

So yeah this is a pretty great version of Persona 4, it's number 3 on this list only because it is a re-release, it's probably top 3 in my favourite games of all time at this point.

2. Eiyuu*Senki

So this game is really silly, and that's why I love it so. Take all the horrible and fearsome leaders of history and turn them into anime girls, and you've got this game. You start in Japan and then conquer the entire world, meeting such people as anime girl Ivan the Terrible, anime girl Sir Francis Drake and anime girl King Arthur. The stories are usually based on the actual country you're fighting at any given time America is in a civil war between the north and south, southern Asia is Journey to the West, and so on. The actual gameplay is split up between talking to your commanders and raising they standing with you in very dating sim kind of fashion, and the actual battles, 3x3 grid of commanders attacking the enemy, in which the commander's health also serves as their attack power. Battles are won and money is got, which can be spent of increasing the army sizes of the commanders, and so on and so forth. The story only gets crazier and crazier once you've taken over the entire world, and without a doubt it's the sillies and best thing I've read this year.

The game was also announced for PS3 and Vita since its PC release, lets hope for a translation release because more people have to be witness to this incredible stupidity.

1. The Walking Dead

Fuck this game. Rmanthorp and I would always talk about how impossible it'd be to actually play all five episodes in a row, and I agree. Usually I'd wait for all episodes to be released and then play Telltale games, but this time I was advised to jump in with only 3 episodes released, to give myself time to recover for the next two. I should also point out, after I beat the game, Rmanthorp apologised for recommending the game to me at all.

I guess that's the best way to talk about this game, it's by apologising. The entire game you're wishing it went different, and it then tricks you into thinking everything was your fault. Not a single thing happened in which I felt good about what I had to do, or what I was going to have to do. The game makes you think there are black and white choices, slowly turns them into shades of grey, when all along everything is pure black.

Fuck this game.

And there you go you can rest easy now that you know my opinion on videogames.

I like how you just posted a song for Hotline Miami. I was not a fan of the act of playing it but man, that soundtrack is killer.

There is an Adachi social link in Persona 4 golden? That is nuts. I have to see that.

Journey in that state must of been... interesting.

fuck The Walking Dead.

it's nice to see IPPGFTS return, even if only partially about the porn games part. i was so excited for Gravity Rush but when it finally came out i only played like, two missions and haven't touched it since. i feel bad about it, but it just hasn't clicked all that much. i think it's less about the game itself, and more about the Vita. i have yet to find holding that system to be any sorts of comfortable.

nice list. thank you for the read.

fuck The Walking Dead. god dammit.

@AjayRaz: I've got an embarrassing amount of half finished blog posts on my computer. I want to start up another sort of regular blog series but I just can't decide on what yet, who knows if it'll even be porn game related or not.

Also I played Gravity Rush almost entirely using the motion controls for the combat and loved it. Maybe I'm crazy, but that combined with my swivel chair made that combat more enjoyable than it was for the most part, though it still did manage to drag by the end and especially in the DLC chapters. It's worth trying to get back in, if only for the setting.

@ImmortalSaiyan: The Adachi social link is nuts and I love it, it's the perfect amount of foreshadowing without outright spoiling what's happening. There's a weird dissonance between the social link and Adachi's appearances in the main story (that have remained almost entirely untouched) but that can be said for all the social links.

I'd've also said that Journey's story was a "sobering experience" but I'm better than that.

how am I not surprised to see Katawa Shoujo on here.

and female King Arthur? pftt that been done before since Fate/Stay Night and Fate/Extra has female Francis Drake

Why does everyone ejaculate over Hotline: Miami's soundtrack? Repetitive computer music is what it is. It would be cool if you posted just a track for Journey though. But you cant do that can you? Journey has more to it.

@Flacracker: I feel like you're missing the point on both soundtracks.

Hotline Miami's soundtrack is repetitive 'computer music', sure, I'll give you that. Most techno/house music is designed to be repetitive with small variations in different bars. The music works incredibly well for Hotline Miami in that, the game is designed to be repetitive as well. The fast retry systems means that if you don't execute perfectly, you will be replaying segments over and over again. The music compliments that in such a way that sometimes evern certain stings in the music will line up with certain action in the game. Sure this was completely my fault, as I was rushing through segments out of frustration, but it still justified the entire soundtrack with actions like that. Also, psychologically with that game the soundtrack had to be that. Eventually when listening to that kind of music it turns into background music, you don't even realise you're listening to it after extended periods, it becomes a routine that just keeps going and going. The same could be said about the gameplay. As the character progresses through the different levels, killing people becomes more routine to both the player and the character (unless you look at the entire story in full and well I'm not getting into that shit). Repetition does have connotations to driving people insane, and with a game like Hotline Miami, the fact that its nature and psychological aspects can be shown and even amplified by the music shows just how much thought went into each aspect of the game. By just posting the song I was hoping to show that. The song itself is enough to give people the connotations of the bloodshed murder simulator that is Hotline Miami, sure you could say the same about any soundtrack that it reminds the player about the gameplay just due to association, but to have such 'repetitive computer music' be called that and still be incredibly memorable and recognizable, I feel the soundtrack is near perfect.

Also fuck you it's catchy as fuck.

@Wraith1: Yeah Rider is pretty great in EXTRA, but Eiyuu*Senki just amplifies that silliness to the nth degree. If I remember correctly, female Sir Francis Drake rides with female William Kidd and feline Blackbeard, harassing female King Kamehameha I.

Eh, I can't agree about Persona 4. The new content is overwhelmingly fanservice that adds nothing to the story. Now, I realise that lots of people (perhaps most people) will welcome this, and indeed Atlus seem to be of the view that watching scenes where 'The Gang hang out and are pals' is the main reason people play this game. Which I wouldn't dispute, although I don't personally support the Persona series going in this direction. I already felt that P4 had too much of this, with the actual story basically stopping after the first hour and only really picking up again at the very end, by which time many elements feel like they turn up out of the blue, such is the degree to which the story has been allowed to slide. The new intro also shows how they are leaning, with it being a much more honest trailer of what this game is actually like, than the menacing, murder mystery that the old (better IMO) intro pretended the game would be.

It might sound like I hate P4 Golden (and P4 in general), but actually I don't - far from it. I just found it a very disappointingly game in terms of its decision to be so heavily slanted towards being light hearted and cheerful, and to abandon what was for the first hour, shaping up to be an awesome story. Because however they dress it up, this is a game that wallows in fanservice, and slavishly pampers the ego of the player (the Main Character is practically the reincarnation of Jesus, and the game rams home again and again how much people love him - in the opening cinematic alone, you get a flashback of how everyone in his old school was absolutely heartbroken and dismayed at him leaving, and it only gets more fawning from there...) Atlus RPGs have always blended light-hearted fun (that is well written so it actually is charming and fun, rather than unbearable) with a harder, more sinister edge. Their games usually get very dark, and have extremely tragic events that add credibility to proceedings (i.e that its not just 'The Good Guys Always Win'. The previous Persona games all had this, but P4 doesn't.

For the most part, the new content is simply unnecessary, further bloating an already fanservice saturated game, especially since none of it is relevant at all to the story (with one obvious exception, which for the record is very well handled indeed and *easily* the best thing about this new edition). But that is one element, in a sea of irrelevant material. Again, I understand and respect that the game became a cult hit precisely because people feel differently on this matter than I do, but it doesn't alter how I feel about it. Atlus RPGs were pretty much the only place you could go for this kind of 'dark majestic tragegy, mixed with charm, humour and defiant optimism' material - so to see them slant so heavily toward the latter, and go for a much more audience friendly approach was dispiriting to say the least. The post game is the same, being wall to wall fanservice for a month and a half that you *must* go through to get to the ending that you earned. It makes the story seem even less important, and whilst I'm happy they included this content for those who want it, there really should have been an option to skip ahead to the end for those who are 'fanserviced out' by that point.

But again, without giving any real spoilers, that one element I was talking about, at least gave me hope that they haven't abandoned fans of their older material completely (which has been a great concern, given their shameless milking of both P3 and P4 with multiple editions, comics, toys, animes etc etc and no new RPGs during this whole gen of consoles). But yes, although the game's new content is mostly just more fanservice, that one element introduces some much needed venom and added weight to the generally neglected story. The introduction of one of the new Arcanas is a brilliant moment, and one of the best in the whole story. I just find it a shame that such powerful images as the bodies hanging from the jagged anntennas etc, the cool idea of The Midnight Channel, the potential for really powerful tragedy (and optimism/redemption) was squandered in this game.

Anyway, its great that you enjoyed it so much. And it is a great game in its own right, so its right that you praise it. I guess it just didn't offer the things that I really want from an Atlus game, and which it seems like it will offer, but then decides not to. Basically I preferred Persona 2 and Persona 3, which offer a much more balanced experience between light and dark material IMO. (And P1 as well I guess, although that is showing its age these days).

Is anime girl King Arthur just Saber? If not, then opportunity fucking missed.