Between work kicking my ass for the past several months and my propensity to play long games (and in some cases, multiple times), I haven't had much opportunity to try out some of the newer releases as of late. Now that I have some free time on my hands (all hail the staycation), I'm prodding at my backlog a bit and checking some of these games out. Tonight, I finally turned on my Vita for the first time since...sometime last year, I guess. My copy of Dragon's Crown was still in it.

I guess as a quick aside, I should just state some thoughts on the Vita in general. I really, really don't get nearly as much use out of it as I feel I should. I have games for it and the desire to play them, but when it comes to the actual Vita itself, I just find so much about the thing just offputting. I don't really like the combination of the touch screen and touch pad on the back (which has more to do with the fact that I have yet to play a game that uses the touch pad in a way I find meaningful), I'm not a fan of the UI design and structure, and between this and the PS4, just feel that Mark Cerny should never be allowed to oversee the design of a user interface ever again. I am pretty sure that he is actually a robot and I would be willing to cite Knack in this argument. But anyway.

Tonight, I started playing MIND=0, which some of you may recognize as that RPG that at first glance looks like an off-brand Persona. Obvious inspirations aside, that really isn't giving the game enough credit; at least from the couple of hours that I've played so far. I've just completed the first actual dungeon and have gotten through a lot of expository story bits, and the game has just opened up to give me more options on where to go and what to do.

But first things first. How Persona-esque is this game? Well, strictly speaking, each party member has a MIND; a sort of spiritual creature that's bonded with them. But there's no fusion or collection element, and the main character Kei isn't a wild card that can swap between them at will. From the way it appears, at least early on, the MINDs the characters get when they first awaken are the MINDs they stick with. In battle, when a MIND is summoned, it can attack and perform various skills, but any damage that the character takes is inflicted on the MIND, draining MP rather than LP (Life Points). If MP is taken to zero by an enemy attack, the MIND is knocked out for a minimum of two turns. When the MIND isn't summoned, the human character can still attack, but can also charge MP by defending. So, from what I've been able to experience in my limited combat so far, battles are heavily focused on knowing when to summon your MIND and when to dismiss them to recharge, or determining if keeping them out is worth experiencing a MIND Break (as the human characters do not suffer LP drain from enemy attacks when MINDs are in play).

Dungeon exploration is more akin to the original Persona than any of the sequels. Exploration is in first-person, and the mini-map fills in as you explore more. The dungeons in this game take place in an alternate dimension space called the Inner World (the normal human world being the Outer World). At the point in the story where I'm at, the party is still pretty much clueless as to what the Inner World is, what MINDs are, or why any of this insanity is happening in general. The police, meanwhile, have an interest in hunting down MIND users, with a couple of police officer characters that will probably play into the story more as it goes on.

The only real explanation that the party has gotten is from the Undertaker. No, not the WWE wrestler. This lady:

The Undertaker is the proprietor of a special "shop" that the characters wind up in when they're attacked by a MIND for the first time (although there are other methods that allow entry). And rather than Philemon going "'Sup!" an imparting Persona abilities or signing a contract with Igor, the members of the party get their MIND by choosing their weapon from among the shop's large selection. And this choice is essentially like Indiana Jones picking out the Holy Grail in The Last Crusade. Pick wisely, and you live. Pick wrong, and you die. And when you pick the right weapon, a MIND bonds with you. These MINDs (and the weapons themselves) are invisible to most people, save other MIND users and some select special individuals.

Where all of this is going, I have no idea. Again, the characters are completely clueless as to what's going on. But the party members I've acquired so far are an entetaining bunch. Kei, the protagonist, is pretty serious and sullen. He's also a voiced character with dialogue like everyone else. Sana is an athletic tomboy and was the first of the group to awaken to her MIND. And then there's Leo, who's...actually kind of a shithead, believing in the power of "As seen on TV" ghost hunting toys and getting caught up in the excitement. He also manages to fuck up his weapon selection a bit. He doesn't die, but his arm becomes demonic. Oops.

Like I said, I'm still really early in, and there's not much of the overarching story I can really talk about at this point because I really don't know what's going to happen. Still, it's been entertaining enough that I'll probably stick with it. Goodness knows my Vita would probably appreciate the attention for once.

I look forward to hearing more, I've long had some interest in the game. If it turns out to be a solid, entertaining JRPG, even if it's nothing special I'll probably pick it up (maybe when it's on the cheap).

Hmmmm that sounds promising.

If I get a Vita Tv , I may look into this.

Yeah, I'm in the same boat. Great write up, Hailinel.

@hailinel said:

The only real explanation that the party has gotten is from the Undertaker.

"I'm building the coffin for your funeral, Steve Austin-kun. uguuu~!"

There is something about that character design that I really don't like, I just can't pin down exactly what it is.

I hate the amount of buckles. 8 fucking buckles.

@truthtellah said:

@hailinel said:

The only real explanation that the party has gotten is from the Undertaker.

"I'm building the coffin for your funeral, Steve Austin-kun. uguuu~!"

Honestly, this would get me more interested in pro wrestling than anything that's actually going on in pro wrestling right now.

I'm going to tag @meatball, @slag, and @amyggen since you three had interest more thoughts I had. So!

Anyway, after spending some more time with the game and having a chance to do some more dungeon delving, shopping, and story...ing, I'm liking it, but I'm pretty sure that some are going to find it an acquired taste. An example of why I say this is because the story is told entirely through visual novel-style character portraits and dialogue. So unlike, say, Persona 4, you don't see character models interacting with the environment during story sequences or anything like that.

Running around town is akin to a game like Persona 3 Portable. You move a cursor over a point you want to access (shop, dungeon entrance, or other point of interest) and interact with it. It makes things streamlined, which is nice for a portable game, but I do know that there are some that were turned off of P3P for that reason.

Once you get to a certain point early on, you get access to the game's sidequests, which take the form of requests you can fulfill for various people. Some are distributed through a detective agency, but others you find by doing things like talking to shopkeepers, or to your friends when prompts for character interactions appear on the city map. And fulfilling these requests could be as simple as watching an optional story sequence, or hunting for items, or killing X number of a certain enemy. I've only completed a few requests so far, but I think I've got the drift.

As for the story, still not too much to go on, but I do have a better picture of the basic situation as the characters understand it now. MINDs, or Major Inner Node Displacements, are residents of the alternate "Inner World", and their default emotional state is violence. There are doors between the Outer and Inner Worlds that allow MINDs to either slip into the Outer World and cause trouble by possessing humans, or by dragging unsuspecting humans into the Inner World. How the Undertaker fits into this, it's hard to say, other than she has some sick wrestling moves essentially governs the contracts forged between humans and MINDs, and these MINDs may be, more or less, the Inner World mirror selves of the humans.

So I'm finding it pretty cool, though I do think the combat could be more interesting. This of course could change in the long run as it's still early and I don't have much to work with. I just need to get those skill slots unlocked, figure out good line-ups of skills, and get some better strategies down. I should hopefully have more to say on it as I get further in.

On a final note, I was actually surprised to discover that the proprietor of the accessory shop (or at least the first accessory shop encountered) is a drag queen, and no one really cares. No one makes a big deal of it, calls attention to it (I mean, I am, but the game doesn't), or uses it for a springboard for humor. Dude just likes looking pretty.

I feel like calling the game second-rate would be robbing it of some credit, but it looks like the sorta game you would play after playing similar, better games (like Persona). It seems like there's still things to enjoy in the game, but they might be better appreciated when the higher-quality alternatives have been exhausted.

@hailinel Would you agree? Or does the game do enough to differentiate itself from similar titles in the genre?

All of that sounds totally fine to me. P3P is one of my all time favourite handheld games, and its storytelling style, which is similar to what you described for Mind=0 never bothered me - the same goes for town navigation. Seems like the biggest question mark is the combat. But I'm already thinking I'll definitely pick this up on the cheap at some point.

There's no doubt that the game has some derivative elements, but I do agree that calling the game second-rate would be robbing it of some credit. At least as far as I've played. It's not the top-tier of quality, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad game, or that it's not worth anyone's time to play.

Ah, cool. I think part of my unsureness of the combat is just due to the fact that at the point I'm at, there's really not much that my characters can do. There's a skill system which I haven't been able to fully explore yet because the characters only start off with one skill slot each (they all have two now) and I'm just now getting to a point where enemies are displaying more diversity in terms of elemental alignment and weakness. They cool thing about he skill system is that it's fully customizable. You find skills by defeating enemies and so on, and can freely swap out any skill a character has equipped with one in the inventory.

My only beef with the game so far is the length of the dungeons. I'm on the 3rd one and each floor is so damn big. Also, I've never been too keen on random encounters which makes the floors seem bigger because the amount of time you spend on each one. Gameplay-wise I totally dig it. Some encounters can even become challenging since you rely upon TP (essentially the same as SP in Persona) and can recharge it through turns

@hailinel: Thanks for the update man, it's sounding more up my alley all the time.

I don't mind that story telling style one bit, frankly I look at the portraits in a Persona game during cutscenes, rarely the character models.

@hailinel: So this game is going for about €15 on the PSN store for the next week or so and looks interesting in that it looks like a mix between Persona and Virtues Last Reward, which are both two games I never thought I'd have enjoyed but ended up enjoying anyway. Never finished VLR though, because the ending was spoiled on me :(

Got any more to say on this game? I'm looking at either this or P3P for my next travelling to work game.

I dropped off from playing it, though I'm looking to get back to it. If you're looking at a choice between this or P3P, I'd say go with P3P. MIND=0 is entertaining, but up against a Persona game, it's not really a contest.

@hailinel: Thanks for the reply. Maybe it'll end up on PS+ some day. Right now I'll just focus on P4G and then when that's done check out P3P. I dunno how I'll feel about the removal of Teddie and Kanji though