Having had my school year come to an end a few weeks ago, I've been getting back into doing wiki work here on the Giant Bomb and I've noticed a bit of an issue: There are a lot of Japanese games that have no release date information. Considering the comparative lack of English coverage of Japanese games in most Western media outlets, this isn't much of a surprise and is probably to be expected. It's gotten to be less of an issue with more recent games, even those that still manage to never get localized, but it's still noticeable and it's especially widespread with older, pre-PS2-era games. Even if release date data tends to be one of the less glorified aspects of GB's database, it's nice to have for the sake of complete records and other archival reasons. To that end, I thought I would take the time to do a run-down of how you can look up these release dates for Japanese games using a few different Japanese databases. This is specifically tailored towards those who don't speak or write Japanese; if you can already do those things, you're already perfectly capable of looking up this data yourself. If you've got additional questions or suggestions, then feel free to say so in the comments. I'm open to revisions!
Before You Set Out
Naturally, in this "age of the Internet" and "Web 2.0" and all, you don't necessarily need to make a whole lot of preparations before setting out on your release date research. However, a few things are still handy to have before you set out, so let's quickly outline both essential and optional things, as well as how they'll be of good use to you.
Necessary Materials
Have East Asian language support installed on your computer. This should be mostly a given, but every now and again, I still get messages from people saying something like, "Pepsi, every time you write Japanese all I see are boxes. I love boxes, but I know there's more to Japanese, right?" While there are characters in Japanese that essentially consist of pure boxes, there are indeed way more that aren't just that. So for the purpose of at least seeing the text rendered on your screen correctly, especially for reasons that will be outlined later on in this guide, it's highly recommended that you install text rendering support for Japanese on your computer if you haven't done so. The actual steps depend on your operating system, but given the language's popularity, it shouldn't be hard to Google them. At least in the case of older Windows operating systems, though, you might need an installation disk, so bear that in mind.
Access to the Japanese game's title in... Japanese. This is also something that should be very obvious, but in the event that you can't actually write Japanese, you're naturally going to need to find the text of whatever game you're looking up in its original Japanese, ideally in a format that you can copy and paste into search boxes. Places like Wikipedia should be a good resource, as a lot of the Japanese games that are in the English version either have the Japanese title in parentheses or a Japanese version of the article that just has the title in nice and big boldface print. Technically, if you're stuck with just a picture of a game's box, you can make your way by looking up kanji radicals on a dictionary site such as this one, but that route is only recommended for non-speakers as a last resort. At that point, you're probably just better off asking a Japanese-speaking user on here (like myself!) for writing assistance. It should also be worth noting that romaji is always a no-go since a lot of native Japanese databases have no need for storing that sort of information. Likewise, it's best to have any and all kanji that's present in a given title, just to be on the safe side. If you're using Amazon Japan, it's not entirely necessary for reasons that will be explained later, but having kanji expedites the process no matter where you are.
Optional Materials
A Japanese input method editor installed. This is only really helpful if you at least have a basic understanding of Japanese phonetics and at least the kana writing systems, but it will make your life a lot easier on the text entry front. You won't be forced to copy and paste all of the time and can simply type everything out yourself. Any good input method editor will just integrate straight into the OS itself and be useable in virtually every program that accepts text input and not just browsers, as well as easily allow you to switch back to English input. There are a variety of input method editors that you can use these days for Windows, Mac, and Linux, but the most popular ones tend to be Microsoft's and Google's. Both operate more or less the same, although the latter has the added benefit of incorporating Google's predictive search technology to guess the terms and kanji compounds that you're probably trying to write anyway based on popularity.
Applicable Japanese Terms
Naturally, I don't expect you to be able to read Japanese, but it helps to be able to at least visually recognize a few key terms you might find on your search so you understand what you're looking at. Luckily for you, there are only two terms that you really need to know. I'm going to include them as regular text so that you can use them for ctrl+f purposes, as well as a nice picture, just in case you run into a graphics-heavy page for whatever reason. I apologize in advance if this table looks wonky. I'm not the most experienced user with this particular tool on the site.
Japanese Text
Translation
発売日
This is the kanji compound for release date. If you do a ctrl+f search on a page with this term and find a date next to it, you're in luck! You've found what you're looking for.
＿年＿月＿日
When substituting the blanks for actual numbers, this is the dating system that Japanese utilizes. Like a good number of other places elsewhere, Japan uses a "Year, Month, Day" standard. As such, the number in the blank for ＿年 is the year, the number in ＿月 is the month, and ＿日 is the day. As a quick example, this guide was posted on May 18, 2011, which would be written as ２０１１年５月１８日.
One More Thing Before We Head Off
This should be fairly apparent to anybody who regularly edits the wiki, but just so we're clear, any and all Japanese release dates that you finddo not go in the field titled "Original US Release" on the main wiki page for each game. Just as that field says, only the first initial US release date belongs there, no exception. We have a release section for every game page to cover all of the other territories and re-releases for that exact reason. I only bring it up because I and other users have noticed non-US dates in there before for some games and it can be especially prevalent with Japanese-exclusive ones. If the game never came out in the US, that field is to always stay blank.
Actual Japanese Databases and How to Navigate Them
Now for the part that's actually directly relevant for looking up release date information. Assuming you've taken care of everything need to get your computer to render Japanese correctly and don't have problems with text input, you're ready to go look up some games' release dates. While the information for most games' release dates is readily available in Japanese, as far as I know, there aren't any famous databases like Mobygames that focus predominantly on release dates. As such, I'm going to walk you through how to find the information on three separate sites. Which one you choose will probably be a matter of preference, but if you're uncertain about how reliable a given date is on one place, you'll be able to easily verify with another site. Like with the previous section, I'll include images to walk you through the process for each site so that you can get a visual understanding of where the information is placed on each page and how to extract the relevant data from it. I'll be using the game Kamaitachi no Yoru as the example to guide you through the process on all three sites, mostly because I think it has some pretty nifty box art.
Wikipedia
When I say Wikipedia, I mean the Japanese branch, the front page for which you can find right here. By and large, the Japanese version looks and operates very similarly to its English counterpart. All of the relevant sections and tools are where you'd expect them to be. As such, the main challenge is naturally deciphering the actual wiki page for the game in question. The first step is what you would expect, though; just put the Japanese name of the game in the search box, as this totally-not-condescending picture indicates. Do as the circle says for your own safety! You should be brought immediately to the game's wiki. In the event that your search term can actually to multiple pages and brings you the typical Wikipedia landing that asks you to pick a more specific article, always go for the one that specifically has the Japanese term for game, ゲーム, in parentheses. Given that most Japanese titles enjoy being super indulgent and elaborate, it's shouldn't be a common problem. Nevertheless, I've provided an example in the form of Portal below just in case you do run into such a page. If, however, you run into the scenario where you're brought to a general series page instead, it's probably because you weren't searching for a specific enough title; you might get a prompt up top to go to the page you're really looking for, but whether or not that's the case depends on the individual page. I can't help you on figuring that out within the bounds of this tutorial. Like I said, usually this doesn't happen and that's for the best. Finding the actual release date information on a game's wiki page should be really easy. Just copy the term 発売日 that I already mentioned earlier and run a ctrl+f search for it. More likely than not, the release date information will be located in the usual information table that you see on the right-hand side of wiki articles. In the event that you have multiple releases for a given game, they're usually broken down by system (written conveniently in intuitively English acronyms, such as FC for Famicom) and region, which are represented by flags. Regardless, the date that you're looking for should be in plain view in that ＿年＿月＿日 format I previously mentioned.
Nothing to it, right? The circles will never betray you. Not too painful, right? In this case, Kamaitachi no Yoru has multiple release dates because it's been ported a bunch of time to other platforms. The original Super Famicom version was released on November 25, 1994, while the PlayStation version came out on December 3, 1998 and so on. In general, like the English Wikipedia, release dates that are shown on the Japanese Wikipedia tend to be reliable, so if you just need the information at a glance, it will usually prove to be reliable. Of course, if you're still worried about the accuracy of the date, there are other sites that you can consult, which I'll go over right now.
Famitsu
Say what you will about their review practices, but given the fact that the magazine has been around since the Famicom days, if nothing else, it should have a pretty good grasp on game release dates for games from the last 30-ish years, which it does on its web site right here. Navigating the front page is only slightly trickier than Wikipedia's since there are two search fields instead of the typical one. However, for our purposes, you always want to only use the one located on the right, which is specifically for looking up game titles. The other one is for searching articles in their archives. That's also handy in it's own right, but that's not what we're here for today. Just to make it that much more clear, I highlighted what I mean below. Just adhere to the circled area and you'll be okay. Even on Japanese sites, you can't avoid the Portal 2 barrage. The actual searching process is the same as ever. Just type or paste your game's title and hit enter. The next page that you'll encounter might look a little intimidating, but it's easy enough to break down the information, even if you don't know Japanese. Basically, all that's happening is that Famitsu is showing you links to pages for every game that has the same title as your search criteria. This is in case you just insert the name of a series and nothing else. Finding what you're looking for, luckily, is simple. Underneath the name of every game is a list of platforms it's come out on (including budget re-releases!) in English abbreviations and acronyms. As long as you ensure that the title of the game is exactly the same as what you're looking for, in order to avoid accidentally looking up a sequel or side game, you just click the link to the game that contains the version you're looking for underneath. In my example, Kamaitachi no Yoru is actually a series, but I'm looking for the first game on the Super Famicom, so I picked the second result. One day, these circles of mine will get a 40/40 in Famitsu! Just you wait! Once you've picked the right result, it's once again just a matter of choosing your platform of choice and looking for the magic word 発売日, all of which should be located within plain sight near the top of the page. The platform abbreviation is always placed to the left of the game's name for convenience, just in case you have re-releases of that specific version of the game for download services and whatnot. In my case, Famitsu confirms what Wikipedia already told me earlier: Kamaitachi no Yoru came out on November 25, 1994 for the SNES. Once again, pretty easy to find, although I've illustrated my example below with another handy circle. In case you need to make another search, the box on this page will only specifically look up game titles, so no need to worry about inadvertently finding articles. Like I said, pretty nice box art, no?
Amazon Japan
Last but not least for this guide is Amazon Japan. While Famitsu and Wikipedia will probably have you covered for Japanese release dates, Amazon Japan, which you can find here, isn't a slouch, either. Obviously, it hasn't been around as long as Famitsu, but it still does a respectable job of maintaining dates for retro games that are in its database, so there's no shame in looking up games there. To do that, it's more or less exactly like searching for games on other Amazon branches. You just type the Japanese name of the game into the search bar, which will then take you to the results. If you like, you can also use the drop-down menu on the left hand side to specify game results only by picking TVゲーム, but unless you're dealing with a series that has novel and anime spinoffs, it shouldn't be necessary. Once again, here's a nice picture of what I've been talking about, just in case somebody needs it. Not very different, right? Oh, hey, the Super Mario collection is on sale for 1400 yen. Lovely! Once again, you're facing a pretty straightforward results page. Like on other Amazon sites, the game results are broken down by platform and, for your convenience, those names are also in English. Just click on the version you're looking for and you should be good to go. You can also use the left-hand side to narrow down your results to just games by clicking ゲーム and even more so by the actual platform, although those names tend to be in Japanese just for the sake of inconsistency. Regardless, you shouldn't have much trouble finding your desired game. In my example picture below, I've once again highlighted the game I'm personally looking for. And once again, circle gets the square. Unlike Famitsu and Wikipedia, release date information tends to be buried a little bit more in favor of the usual promotional information that's supposed to persuade you in Japanese to buy the game. Regardless, it's still easy to find. Like always, just do a search on the page for 発売日 and you'll find the date immediately in a section titled 登録情報. It couldn't be any simpler than that. And once again, for my game, it was, in fact, released on November 25, 1994. Who would have thought!? I didn't even have to decipher elementary date-related kanji to figure that out, either. Yep. Just as planned, even if it was hiding in plain sight. One more quick feature I want to point out before starting to wrap up this guide is Amazon Japan's unique kana to kanji title conversion search. If you're manually writing a game's title using only kana because you know the phonetic reading but not the actual kanji, Amazon will usually make a pretty good guess as to what you're trying to look up by posting kanji results under the search bar as you type. If you visually recognize the kanji you're looking for, then you just need to click on the relevant result and it'll insert it into the search bar. It's handy to utilize for beginning students that might not quite know their way around kanji all that well yet, but it's otherwise completely optional to use for our purposes. In the example picture I've put underneath, I looked up "Shin Megami Tensei" in hiragana and it gave me the correct kanji in the very first result. Awesome! It even lets me search for the horrid novel adaptations if I wish! Thanks, Amazon!
A Quick Note on Japanese Game Ratings
Much like American games, Japanese games didn't always have a rating board attached to them. A lot of older games, even those from the late 1990s, tend not to have ratings. Since CERO ratings are, like ESRB ones, always put on the front of the box, if you don't see one explicitly on the front of the box, it means the game wasn't rated and you can therefore leave that section blank when typing in release information here on GB. Otherwise, the ratings always use an English character that's in a bold white letter surrounded by a black rectangle. The one exception to this is the now outdated all ages rating, which is written in the kanji 全年齢. It has since been replaced by the "A" rating, but since releases on here allow you to choose all ages, it's worth noting. I've placed a larger version of the kanji below for easier viewing.
Conclusion
I know that this guide will probably only be useful to a select few who dutifully fill out release information for games on the GB wiki. However, I feel that it's important that non-Japanese speaking users be able to find that information for Japanese games when it's otherwise hard to find in English. As such, I hope this guide comes in handy for them. While I believe I've covered more or less everything necessary, if you have any comments, suggestions, or feedback, you are, of course, free to say them in the comments or in a PM. If I've substantially screwed up somewhere or there needs to be something else inserted, I am, of course, not against doing so. If you also need help looking for the Japanese name of a game or series, then I'll also be happy to help you and will give you the title in raw text.
Apparently it's been a while since I last actually wrote a regular blog post for the last, having not done so since I posted my Catherine review and corresponding thoughts on it. I had meant to do something similar with the Yakuza 4 review that I posted last month in which I discussed my appreciation of the game's frankness towards certain social issues facing Japan today, although naturally that didn't pan out, despite it being mostly complete. There was also another scrapped blog post inspired by my time playing the harsh, but still greatly enjoyable Bangai-O HD. That was another post that actually was completed, but was ultimately scrapped because I came to the realization that I was being seriously pretentious, even by my own standards. I'd love to just give that game a regular review and there's a chance that it still might happen, but that game also gives me serious self-esteem issues and it's doubtful I'd complete it enough to my satisfaction particularly soon. This blog will probably address a lot of those main points I originally wrote about the game in that other post anyway, but this time in tandem with a bunch of other stuff. I have no idea how long this is going to turn out, but if my reviewing antics are any indicator, we might be here for a while. Regardless, onward and upward!
General Life Ramblings
The biggest culprit with regards to my absence from this blog has been, as always, university life. There was a fair amount going on this past semester and while I can't say it's all even over entirely, it's nice to at least shelve a lot of it for the time being and just bask in summer vacation. As is probably inevitable because of my study habits, I tend to accumulate a pretty serious case of burnout by the time each school year is over. It's not that I usually hate what I study, far from it, but just that keeping pace tends to take its toll on me after a while. I'm really passionate about my Japanese studies and plan to see them through to the end, should such a thing ever even really be feasible, but when I'm putting in enough hours devoted to that subject alone that it's like a part-time job, I know I'm eventually just going to want to halt progress for a little while and take a breather. It's good for my sanity and since I make sure to still speak and write it in my daily life, usually I don't have any horrible regression before picking it back up for my annual summertime review.
I have 11 chapters of this bad boy to review, plus another four that the class never covered. That's not even including all the kanji review work I also get to do. It's all for the sake of placement exams! That's a good thing, since I can't particularly afford to go backwards all that much this year in particular. As I've mentioned a bunch of times in my own status updates on here, I'm going back to Japan this August for at least the duration of this next school year. Although I don't look forward to the visa paperwork I have to fill out soon, this is good news for a bunch of reasons. Going back naturally means that I have the chance to actually go and apply my studies in the real world, which, for somebody who plans to make Japanese their livelihood, is a critical thing. I'm making plans to go live with a family who will be kind enough to host me for the school year and put up with my antics while hopefully helping me get the boost in colloquial Japanese that I desperately want. But equally important to me is that this is just an opportunity for me to be back there. Japan is certainly not a place without its problems, as sites like the excellent Japan Subculture Research Center will point out, and as somebody who's actually going to be a resident there for at least a little while, I imagine that will become vividly clear to me again. But after everything that happened during and in the wake of the March 11 disasters, I've been feeling a much stronger pull to return to Japan and see what's become of it and its people. Naturally, it's not as though every place in the country is in dire straits, but I felt frustrated that all I could do during the disasters was watch them unfold on NHK World. I have good friends who live over there, both native and foreign, and I wanted nothing more than to physically be there for solidarity. Those sentiments are why I'm going to make an effort to visit areas like Sendai and see at least a little of what happened to them for myself. Japan might have dropped off the news radar because nothing new has happened, but at the very least, I want to remind myself that the recovery process from the earthquake and tsunami is hardly over. Hopefully when I'm on breaks from school this coming year, I'll be able to help out with reconstruction efforts, too.
Regardless, going back abroad in general should make for a nice change of pace for me. I've always tried to avoid living the tourist life whenever I go overseas for an extended period of time and this upcoming study abroad program should make for a good extension of that. In addition to the homestay that I'll hopefully get to participate in, the fact that I'm switching from Tokyo to somewhere else just a little bit smaller by comparison will be nice. Tokyo's enormity is certainly admirable and makes the city a fun one to roam around in, but it's also easy to feel lonely in it when you're just one anonymous face in a herd of 20 million. People tend to be a lot less approachable there and when they do go up to a random foreigner like me, it tends to be because they want to practice their English. Getting away from that sort of coldness, something even natives feel is noticeable about Tokyo, and instead heading for a region that tends to be more friendly will be a good way to get a different take on perspectives about Japanese life and whatnot. That, and having grown up in Colorado, I tend to be more comfortable in areas that are lively, but without being excessively bustling. I'm a city-slicker, but I'm most content when there's still ways to easily get away from the hectic lifestyle that can often entail. It looks like where I'm going will have that happy medium and I very much so look forward to have a recontextualized life in Japan knowing that.
I don't think I ever got around to posting this picture, right? I happened to snap this while walking around my neighborhood the last time that I was in Japan. Dragon Quest 9 had recently come out, so it's not really a surprise to see slimes show up for the summer festivals. Having said that, it's not as though I expect to disappear from this site while I'm back in Japan. On the contrary, if my Japan-related posts and lists from my last trip are any indication, I'll probably end up going on weird adventures again that end up being heavily skewed towards video games again. Not only is there another Super Potato near my new hometown that I'll be certainly paying a visit to, but I'll probably be indulging some more in Japan's arcade culture, something which I was very happy to see was still thriving when I was last there. Maybe I'll even finally get around to starting that Neo Geo collection I keep talking about, money issues notwithstanding. Of course, a lot of day trips I take will also have nothing to do with games at all and there are some other areas in addition to Sendai I feel that I need to visit, but being the gamer that I am, I have a knack for still letting video games enter the equation when I'm overseas, so I won't deny that they'll play their part when I'm in Japan again. I also just might attempt to drop by Tokyo Game Show this September just so I can witness that particular brand of madness myself. We'll see! Expect lots of photos on here related to my game findings once I'm back there.
Translation Work
Here's a random preview. Hopefully when I see this in my image tab, it'll remind me to do the rest. This will be a much shorter aside before I move on to actually discussing games properly, but I wanted to mention that I recently finished up another translation project that I'm hoping to post here soon. Unlike the last time I did something like this, I actually did all of the Photoshop work myself. The project itself is a translation of a short story written by the late Osamu Tezuka, a manga author who is best known for works such as Astro Boy, Black Jack, which is a personal favorite of mine, and if you're a little older, Kimba the White Lion. He created over 700 original works in all during his lifetime. With a number that huge, a few things are bound to have flown under the radar, even for someone as famous as him, so I deliberately tackled something that wasn't even well-known in Japan, as well as to just better get to know one of my favorite authors in general. The basic premise is a bit strange, consisting of a love story between a boy and the spirit of a cactus that he falls in love with. There's a lot more to it, although suffice it to say that it's certainly meant to be strange, but for good reason, as the story itself demonstrates. Honestly, after staring at every page repeatedly for both translation and Photoshop purposes, I have no desire to read it ever again, but judging from the reception I got when formally presenting it for a class, people were interested in it, so I'll be putting it up here relatively soon, once I get around to touching up a few blemishes. I hope you all enjoy it, although I'm curious what the reaction to it will be in general. We'll see soon enough.
Video games, video games, video games!
The fact that it's taken me this long to even get around to discussing actual video games is why I probably won't even throw this blog into the off-topic forum, but that doesn't matter, since there's a lot to discuss when it comes to recent video games I've been playing. As is usually the case after reviewing a game that I get pretty heavily invested in like Yakuza 4, a lot of my game-playing time as of late has been devoted to me just mindlessly playing a lot of little things in spurts. It's not often that I go and commit myself to another game immediately after finishing one, since I usually have no idea what I want to prioritize. Eventually I figure out whether I want something new or if I should tackle something on my ever-growing to-do list, but in the meantime, I just play whatever randomly catches my fancy and see what sticks. This went on for about a month, due in no small part to studying for finals. However, since finals ended about a week and a half ago, I've found myself absorbed with Bangai-O HD and 999, two vastly different games, both in terms of mechanics and what they actually prioritize in the first place. The contrasts they provide in playing them back-to-back has gotten me to think a lot about what I want enjoy from games and as such, I now want to take the rest of this entry now to outline my thoughts about each game individually.
This game is god damn ridiculous and that's all I could ever ask out of it. We'll start off with Bangai-O HD, since that's the first game in the pair I started playing. Bangai-O HD, for those haven't been paying attention to the ludicrous trailers that D3 released, is essentially a dual joystick action game in which you pilot a mech that can shoot off a lot missiles when under a lot enemy fire. It's a hectic game that actually still has a lot of focus on puzzle design due to how you have to use your weapons in tandem with the level designs and the end result is a really fun, ridiculous, and satisfying game, even if it's designed to be harsh and frustrating. Like the other entries in the Bangai-O series, HD was developed by Treasure, the development team you probably know better for their work on Ikaruga, Guardian Heroes, and Gunstar Heroes, all of which have long since been considered classics by many gamers. Treasure is a studio I've long since loved and respected because of the gameplay development philosophies and overall ethic. I'll probably never get around to actually ever finishing all of their games since, like Bangai-O HD, a lot of them are notoriously difficult, but I still greatly enjoy a lot of their games because they're just games. There's no overt, pretentious context that attempts to really justify why you're shooting off a thousand missiles simultaneously in Bangai-O or why your ship changes color in Ikaruga; it's just there because it's a game and deserves to be enjoyed based on the merits of pure gameplay. It's an approach that we haven't seen much of since the 90s thanks to a greater, if generally half-hearted, emphasis on incorporating narratives into games as a means of immersion, but Treasure's philosophy of building games that are entirely about gameplay and nothing else whatsoever still works. Games are enjoyed to varying extents based on the rules, conditions, constraints, and abilities that are imposed onto players and granted to them; the more gratifying all of those things are in tandem, the better a game is thought to be. Even as a lot of game developers try to spread their wings and give their games greater narrative depth, there's still something to be said for games that eschew that in favor of just being a game, since that's what games always were in the beginning and still ultimately are at their core.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that Treasure games are an antithesis to the obsession with games as an art form. This is a good thing. While I enjoy a lot of games that people say are art ( even if their own developers say they aren't), I first started playing games when the Sega Genesis was still a major console. The games I enjoyed then were ones that I liked entirely because I thought they were fun. I enjoyed them as games and nothing greater than that because that was all they ever strove to be. As I've gotten older, I've appreciated it when games managed to be thoughtful without skimping on good gameplay, often becoming my modern favorites these days, but sometimes it gets tiresome to hear developers try to make their games have some sort of greater importance than just being a great game. Modern Warfare games are enjoyed in part because people enjoy its (relatively?) realistic settings, Braid is liked because of its philosophical statements, and so on. It's important that games push those sorts of boundaries, but I feel it shouldn't be every game's duty to try and assign that sort of arbitrary context and justification, since otherwise players and developers might lose sight of what makes a game a game in the first place. It's not something that I think will ever come true completely, but when you see certain games overemphasizing its supposed storytelling greatness and forgetting how to make something good and fun out of it, it's something that I think is worth worrying about.
This game is also god damn ridiculous. Likewise, all it needs in order for me to enjoy it is to be a good game game, which it definitely is. That's why I think I've had such a great time playing Bangai-O HD. It's a reversion back to the roots of video games when all there was to love about most games was how they played. It is a completely dumb game that's about giant robots strategically shooting off a ridiculous number of giant missiles everywhere and nothing more, but that's all you need to enjoy it in the first place. Your sense of satisfaction and fulfillment from the game comes from getting good at it and figuring out how to survive a lot of extreme situations each level poses. Getting corned by a bunch of huge ants that will almost certainly kill you, only to come out on top as the underdog Rocky-style with a barrage of missiles elicits dumb smiles and good times all around. It actually has a decent amount of depth to it mechanically, but that's the only part of the game that is deep, per se. The story, unlike even the previous DS game, which already had a sparse amount to begin with, is virtually entirely absent, making your only motivation for playing the game how much you actually like its gameplay. I happened to like it quite a bit and as a result of that, it made me hope that more games like it make a return. Even in an age of so-called "epic games" that younger generations are keen to latch onto, the allure of a gamer's game whose merits are entirely dependent on how fun it is will never disappear. While downloadable games are the space where these sorts of games tend to appear nowadays, I do hope that they more often return to proper retail channels, provided they have enough content to justify it. It'd be a nice reminder of the heritage games are supposed to ultimately uphold at the end of the day.
And all of that was the condensed version of what I originally planned to post about Bangai-O. I didn't expect to still take up that much space, but what's done is done. Let's move on now to 999 for the DS. Those of you who follow my status updates have probably noticed that I have pretty strong opinions about certain parts of that game. Parts of how that game is structured really frustrated me, for example. In order to get the real ending for that game, you are forced to restart the game from scratch at least once. You get the option to skip text that you've already previous read, which is godsend, but it can be incredibly tedious when you have to do those opening segments repeatedly, especially since the only variation you get in the puzzles is if you deliberately choose to go to different rooms than the ones you already visited. As somebody who ended up getting all five of the other endings by sheer accident before finally getting the real one, I'll admit that some of my frustration was self-inflicted, as I tended to make a few wrong dialog choices that kept skewing me the wrong way. However, I do feel that the game isn't the best at even subtly telegraphing what paths and choices you're supposed to take without brute forcing your way through it a couple of times. The way that the game layers key pieces of information on top of itself is your main clue for knowing whether you're on the right track, but by and large, you don't know whether a given choice is going to lead to that without just letting things play out naturally. There's little wiggle room for you missing out on anything and if you do, back to the beginning for you. Before I beat the game, I was of the opinion that this was an interesting experimental device from a narrative standpoint. However, it suffers too much from thinking it's just a visual novel. In forcing, in most cases, multiple endings to be experienced and multiple restarts to subsequently happen, the pluses of having new information to bear in mind for new runs are diminished by the sheer tediousness and repetition that comes from redoing the game yet again. It got to be frustrating to the point where my only real reason for actually finishing the game was to see if it actually could wrap up in a satisfactory way after all that retreading. As a friend put it to me, it's like reading the same book repeatedly just to get a different epilogue. It doesn't work there and nor should it for a game like 999, where your main motivator for playing through it is the narrative playoff.
I hope these captions actually work this time. When I first posted this blog, they all spontaneously disappeared. Surprisingly enough, though, it does work. The game contextualizes those restarts in a brilliant way that immediately convinced that it actually knew it was a game from the start and not just a visual novel on the DS. I won't spoil it since it's still a niche game that people are playing, but that ending does a lot of things right. It not only ties up a lot of loose ends in really creative ways, but it outright changes and recontextualizes how you interpret all of the events leading up to it. The way the game forces those restarts and what it actually means play a critical role in that and it's done to great effect. I haven't seen a game whose ending changes your perspective on how you think about its plot so much since Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, but the game is worth experiencing for that reason alone. The rest of that game is also generally well-written and it smartly incorporates a number of real world concepts that I'd never think would show up in a game. It's not without flaws, but in a medium that is still somewhat starving for intelligent games with narratives that don't pander to anyone, 999's writing is very much so welcome. I'm still of the opinion that the climax and ending could still achieve their intended effects with a reduced number of endings and more streamlined general plot arc, but having seen how it wraps up, I understand and applaud the effort. If I were to write an actual review, it wouldn't be as highly scored as, say, LiK's review that was featured on this very site. A lot of people, I suspect, gave the game really, really flattering review scores because of its writing quality, which is certainly good, but that alone can never make up for the problems it has as a game, those previously-mentioned structural problems being the most notable. Nevertheless, it is a game that comes highly recommended from me for those wanting a good read; it's a smart plot that expects you to keep up without ever leaving you in the dust if something isn't clear, either. 999 is bound to be one of the games people cite when people discuss game writing, as it very well should be.
The God Damn End
I didn't expect this blog to go on for so long. In fact, I didn't want it to. But now it has and as you've probably noticed, I'm not going to proofread it right now. Please forgive me for that; I know that there are almost certainly some missing words and excessively lengthy sentences I'm too lazy to look for right now. I intended for this to be another blog where I was just generally commemorating the end of the school year and my recent antics like I did last year, but as you can see, now it's a monster. I'm sorry for that. I suppose I could have also mentioned that I played both single-player and co-op to completion in Portal 2, but everybody's pretty much said everything that there is to be said about that game. Instead, to reward for putting up with all of this text (or for skimming through to the bottom, since I can't tell either way), here's one of The Onion's more brilliant videos that they put out recently. It has nothing to do with games, although it is related to stuff that people have discussed at great length on this site and probably some other sister site.
Catherine is not nearly as sexually explicit as you horny people might have hoped. Sorry to burst your bubble. As is customary whenever I write a review of a game, I like to take a little time on my blog and provide a little bit of a more personal reflection about it. Such is the case once again with the well-hyped Catherine, the PS3 version of which I just posted a spoiler-free review of here and hope you enjoy. While Catherine is hardly the first purely Japanese game I've ever reviewed, it's probably the most interesting one I've had the pleasure of doing for a variety of reasons. Probably the most important of these is that it helped me keep my Japanese sharp in a non-classroom context. As somebody majoring in the language in university with the intention of working over there after graduation, I always find it really important to make sure my fluency comes not just from textbooks, studies, and practice with native friends, but also the consumption of everyday, consumer media. When I actually have the time for them, that includes video games. I was never the type to idiotically think Japanese was a doable language for the sake of video games and the fact that I was never lost during the many, many conversations in Catherine, I think, is at least a little bit of the testament to the work it's taken me to get to that point. I'm certainly not fluent, but it's morbidly nice to know that topics like adultery are doable in a language other than my native English.
As I wrote in my review of the game, though, the game in its current state, which is to say, its non-localized form, is not worth purchasing for those that already know their Japanese fairly well. You can actually make it through to the end of the game without knowing what anybody is saying, but you miss out on so much of the characterizations and plot details that it's just not worth forking $80+ for. The actual gameplay behind it is pretty great for the most part, but you're better of playing the game in a language you understand and, most likely, at a cheaper price point when it comes overseas. You're missing out on a pretty good story in the meantime, but I imagine that'll change eventually.
Just like Vincent and his relationship, don't mind me if I don't proofread this post. I'm tired. I still ultimately decided to write the review because of my position as a Japanese speaking member of the site. I know I'm not the only person who knows Japanese and I'm certainly not alone in importing this game, but as somebody who fits both criteria, I thought English-only speakers might be interested in a critical examination of the game without having to resort to translations of Famitsu or Amazon Japan reviews. Whether that is the case remains to be seen, but if nothing else, I hope it gives those who are still curious about the game a little bit more information before they decide whether to buy it themselves when it's localized. I personally think it's probably worth it, even having paid $100 for my copy, but the more information you know, the better.
Also, despite the hype the game had around it, both from myself and the rest of the Internet, I tried to go into the game as blindly as possible. Games like Catherine, I feel, are best experienced when you don't actually know you're getting yourself into and that was by and large the case for me. I stopped reading most news postings about the game a few months leading up to the release and didn't even try out the demo. Much like how I had previous played Personas 3 and 4 deliberately without knowing much beforehand, I wanted to make sure that happened again with Catherine. Judging by my own reactions to many of the twists, big, small, and humorous that the game had, I'd say that strategy was a success and recommend you do the same as well, if you can.
I should probably stop writing this since I've already been composing a lot this evening, but I'll leave you with a few little thoughts I had about the game that didn't make it into my review, provided below in bullet-point format.
The text messages that Vincent receives are probably my favorite things about the entire game. They're a simple mechanic and don't take a whole lot of time at all, but I still think they add a lot to the experience. They keep you grounded in the world and remind you that there are lives other than Vincent's own that you have to think about. Getting a sweetly worded message from longtime girlfriend Katherine expressing concern about Vincent's working hours and then being able to word the reply so he expressed his gratitude and love just felt right to me.
The title screen is really iconic for me. The imagery is just so distinct and that pained cry for Katherine that Vincent utters when it first loads up is just perfect. You know you're in for an intense game before you even hit the start button.
There's a lot of symbolism to sift through in Catherine. While it's thematically a lot more centralized than a lot of Atlus' previous works, that doesn't make it any less dense or philosophically interesting to try and figure out. I loved it. There was even some imagery that harkened back to my days of studying at Catholic school, something which I never expected a game to do.
I got a really weird ending to the game. I didn't bring it up in the review since that's not the place to really discuss it, but it certainly didn't turn out how I expected. It's not bad, but it's certainly made me curious how the other seven (I think that's how many?) turn out. Going to start another run soon, most likely. I gotta get my money's worth, after all.
Damn, they better reuse that graphics engine for later games. Stuff's absolutely gorgeous to behold.
So I'm told that today is apparently Valentine's Day or, in some circles, Vamulumtime's Day, or, as I prefer to call it, "That Day We All Need To Celebrate Our Love and Relationship Arbitrarily Even Though Every Day Should Really Be a Good Day to do That... Day." It's a time of year filled with lots of pretentious reserved dinner dates, bad, expensive chocolate, and, if you're lucky, conveniently forgotten condoms, leading to a soon-to-be-existent third member of the exclusive lovey-dovey clique to fall in love with by this time next year. Of course, this means it's a great day all around, even on a completely objective level.
At least, if you're an ORDINARY PERSON. A LAME ordinary person at that.
I'm told that this is what you'll look like at some point today. Oh, the things you'll do for love and (b?)romance! Luckily for me and potentially you if you agree with me, today does not have to be that sort of day. And why should it? There are already a lot of people celebrating it and the measly addition of yourself and maybe a lover, whether that be a real person, yourself, or a blow-up doll really isn't going to make the day noticeably better. So today I suggest that you join me in celebrating a different sort of day, one with which can all agree is more worthwhile and has a more specific purpose than Valentine's Day. Unless you skeptically (and rightfully) consider Valentine's Day to be that day the flower and greeting card industries conspired to make everybody broke for the supposed sake of love. Then our holiday can't win in such a skeptical regard, although it still ultimately and thankfully wins overall.
Today, I propose, is Almighty Comrade Satonaka Love Love Day.
Now you might be wondering what, exactly, an Almighty Comrade Satonaka Love Love Day is in the first place. This is understandable, at least if you're among the very few who can be deemed "the uninitiated." You see, Almighty Comrade Satonaka Day is the most important holiday of the year for the Vanguards of the Lunch Revolution, an organization for which I advocated tirelessly on this very site just a few short years ago. Contrary to popular reports on CNN, Sankaku Complex, and Jeuxvideo, the Vanguards of the Lunch Revolution is an organization still going strong, continuing to fight the good fight in bringing deflation to lunch room prices and freedom to those oppressed by those loathsome dictators we call "lunch ladies," or as we members prefer to wittingly call them, "lunch haties." (Not to be confused with the country Haiti. They're actually our number one ally in the fight against all non-Vanguard things!) Our group is so successful, in fact, that we even have a presence on Steam, which is the true indicator of legitimacy for any organization and not just a sad hub for TF2 addicts.
While cute, this still represents everything that we resent about the way you regular plebians celebrate this day. Of course, all I've done is explain the history and significance of Almighty Comrade Satonaka Love Love Day and not the actual mechanics of, you know, celebrating it. That, luckily, is so simple that even non-members can do it without much of a fear of getting arrested or scolded by their (actual?) lovers for scorning them. Essentially, all you do is yell at the top of your lungs just how much you love Almighty Comrade Satonaka, why you're devoted to her, and just what exactly you do to ensure that the flames of your passion are always lit, knowing full well that, like every member of the Vanguards of the Lunch Revolution, she must be a companion for all of the people and never actually romantically into you. She's is both everyone's wife (or waifu, if you're into that) and nobody's at the same time. But that's okay, since real love comes from having yours not being reciprocated! Anybody's who's gotten a restraining order and/or been on Dr. Phil for relationship problems can attest to this very fact.
You can do the actual yelling in any place, although Almighty Comrade Satonaka is only truly pleased if you do in front of crowded areas filled with couples lovestruck at each other's presence, feigning affection for the sake of maintaining social mores and convincing themselves that all the expensive stuff really, really is worth it for everything that comes at the end. However, for practicing purposes, I'll let you express your undying devotion to her here in this thread. Just make sure to actually go and do it in the real world, too. For example, every year I like to say...
"WITH FEET OF STEEL AND A STICK OF MEAT GUM, ALMIGHTY COMRADE SATONAKA HAS TAUGHT ME MORE ABOUT LIFE AND LOVE THAN MY PARENTS AND MOTHER THERESA COMBINED! MY DEVOTION IS INFINITE AND RELENTLESS, ALMIGHTY COMRADE SATONAKA! I LOVE YOU! I WILL PUNT TANKS IN YOUR NAME UNTIL THE DAY I REACH THE MAJOR LEAGUES! THEN I'LL DO IT SOME MORE!" Now it's your turn. Celebrate Almighty Comrade Satonaka Love Love Day in your own way right here and now! So long as Almighty Comrade Satonaka knows you're affectionate for her, any way is a-okay with her. Come on. Don't be shy. I know I just didn't scare you off and have, in fact, sold you on the superiority of Almighty Comrade Satonaka Love Love Day over bad old Valvolinetine's. My argument is, in fact, foolproof and has also convinced on the prospect of joining the Vanguards of the Lunch Revolution if you had not already done so all those year's ago, even if we're already brimming with members and can't hope to accept any new followers at this time. Even if your true heretical love happens to be for Yukiko, Rise, or heaven forbid, Kashiwagi, you should shut up and put up since all those ladies have days of celebration and devotion of their own, too. Legally, speaking, you are obligated to celebrate Almighty Comrade Satonaka Love Love Day anyway, so you really have no choice. Come one and come all! Let's count the ways that we oh so love our dearest Almighty Comrade Satonaka so!
Happy Almighty Comrade Satonaka Love Love Day, fellow comrades! You'd best make it a fantastic one for your own sake and safety!
And if you actually happen to like THIS ONE for some reason, stop being different and love a real woman for once in your god damned life! 110 Comments
Question: Have you visited Wikipedia recently? If the answer is no, do so and just go to any random article. Here, I'll even link a few to you in some different languages for you. As you might have noticed, there's someone who's, shall we say, a bit of a universal constant. No matter where you go these days, that mug and that plea of Jimmy Wales is there, begging, just begging for your money. This is not something entirely new; being a nonprofit site, Wikipedia has a habit of doing this just about every year. But never before has it been that damn obtrusive. Now, granted, on the English version of the site, you get a few other people in the banner now, but totally-not-StarCraft-unfortunately Jimmy is the one that's gotten a lot of visibility. And for good/horrible reason.
Unfortunately for us all, it's apparently contagious for the rest of the Internet. This place, sadly, is no exception.
How bold of him to do so. He doesn't even own Giant Bomb, a site that now gets revenue from ads and its members and yet he still wants to mooch off of you, the innocent viewer. And it doesn't seem to be limited to just the front page, either. I took screencaps of other places he hit as well.
Gallery
Guys, I think we're in serious trouble here. Given that there seems to be no end in sight for Jimmy's reign of terror, we might need to start putting infected areas into containment. We've done too much and gone so far to let ourselves be defeated by this menace. Something has to be done.
But otherwise, I don't know what to do, guys. I'm really, really scared. This page might put us on the right track for finding a solution, but I dunno, man. Things just seem so grim right now.
47 Comments
Having just (finally!) wrapped up Digital Devil Saga 2 this evening, I originally intended to use this space to discuss my thoughts on that SMT sub-series. That blog may or may not still be coming depending on how motivated I'm feeling and how doped up on triptophan I get come Thanksgiving. That being said, I wanted to pass on this... most fashionable screenshot I just took while playing through Soul Hackers, a somewhat obscure SMT spinoff game for the Saturn and PS1. I could provide further context as to what's going on below, but that'd probably detract from the mystique. I'm also very tired and generally incapable of forming super-coherent thoughts at the moment. And so I give you....
A lady in a Jack Frost suit. A very, very bulbous Jack Frost suit. I don't recall the guy being that big even when he was still using his old design.
She still says "hee ho," by the way, in case you were curious.
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Having recently completed Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love for the PS2 and posted a corresponding review of it, I've come to the realization that by sheer luck, I've been playing more SRPGs this year than I ever expected, let alone ones made just by Sega. It's an interesting turn of events for me, mostly because I've typically had disdain for the genre in general. Save for the rare gems like Devil Survivor, SRPGs and I have never really been on friendly terms since I've found most of the standouts to be too overtly complex and math-heavy for my liking. Disgaea was probably the most unfortunate case for me; I wanted to really like that game since I can appreciate something deliberately stupid and insane and yet the gameplay just didn't click with me. Maybe it was just my inexperience with the genre, but it felt like more often than not, I was being punished for making certain moves because of entirely unforseeable consequences later on. Perhaps if I went back and tried it again now, I'd have a better grasp of the mechanics and find myself actually liking it, but as it was, prior to this year, SRPGs were among the few types of games I rarely, if ever ventured into.
And yet this year found me completing Valkyria Chronicles, its PSP sequel, and Sakura Wars: So Long My Love. All of them were games I enjoyed to varying extents. They all have their problems, but as someone not really expecting much out of any of them when I started down this trend, it's still a surprising accomplishment that they actually managed to hold my attention and, more importantly, be fun. This is probably because all of three of the games are fairly unusual for the genre, or at least how I understand. The one thing I've wanted more RPGs to do for a long time is actually incorporate teamwork dynamics into the fundamental gameplay. Since most RPGs have storylines revolving around you forming a group and working towards some common good, it only makes sense to me that the gameplay should accommodate that to some extent. Thankfully, a lot of developers, not just ones from Japan, but all over the world, seem to be thinking the same thing and slowly teamwork is becoming something that's just as important to the gameplay as it is to the story. For me, the inclusion of that feature isn't a guarantee that I'll automatically enjoy a game that has it, but it nonetheless makes the proceedings feel that much more real and consequential when it's done right.
It's also interesting that I played Valkyria Chronicles 1, 2, and Sakura Wars in particular, as it provides a sort of illumination about how Sega is trying to shake things up in the SRPG genre in its own way. Sakura Wars is obviously the oldest and least refined of the bunch, but a lot of the fundamental elements that would help greatly define the tone and gameplay of Valkyria Wars are clearly inherited from it. The idea of character relationships having significant implications on the battlefield is something all three games share. Welkin and his crew can't survive without good coordination between friends and teammates in Valkyria Chronicles and likewise, Sakura Wars' Shinjiro Taiga has to befriend (or possibly date) his teammates in order to maximize their potential on the battlefront. Although all three games treat the underlying mechanics very differently, with Sakura Wars relying heavily on dialog choices and Valkyria Chronicles favoring pre-defined relationships in tandem with malleable character potentials, the underlying mentality still intrigues me greatly. The idea of teams being treated as quasi-living, dynamic units of people in the games lends the proceedings a great sense of humanism, something most games don't even attempt to achieve to begin with.
Although I didn't mention it in my review, I actually played through Sakura Wars twice in my time with the game over the past two-ish weeks. While part of that was just motivated by the ability to fast forward through the text on consecutive runs to view other endings, I had also come away from completing my first playthrough of the game with a respect for what it did in its narrative and gameplay. There were certainly things I still found at fault with it, hence the three-star rating, but it still did enough things right that, just one more time, I wanted to see what new sides of the characters I could unveil in new plot and dialog paths, even if they're based in very time-tested archetypes. Was there more to the sexually ambiguous (potentially even transexual?) Subaru than what I found during my pursuit of another character? What if I actually got off on the right food Anri, the eternally stubborn clerk behind the souvenir store's counter? It's that sort of personal hook into a game that makes me hope that camaraderie and teamwork-centric gameplay becomes more standard in RPGs as time goes on because it's when a game pulls that off that the characters you control on the screen actually start to feel more genuine and developed and not just pixels and polygons like everything else on the screen. That notion excites me to no end.
So Capcom's reveal today that Amaterasu would be a playable character in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 more or less rose my interest in that game from absolutely nothing to "hey, this looks like something crazy I could get into." Although the sun goddess isn't necessarily the first character in Clover's roster I would think of putting into a fighting game (that honor goes to God Hand's Gene, who ironically is confirmed to not be in the game), she does look like a workable and potentially fun character after seeing the video of her in action. All this news about the game in general has gotten the fake game designer in me thinking about my own personal ideal crossover fighting games, some of which (ie: an Atlus/SMT-centric one with RPG-light mechanics) will probably be saved for another blog post. In doing so, however, I was reminded of an amusing fake fighting game video from my YouTube subscriptions feed that was more or less like MUGEN, except with a soul. I thought I'd post it below for your entertainment.
A couple of things about this video:
There is an English version available, but I decided against posting it because it's... not well written. You'll get the gist of what's going on, even with the beginning and ending anyway.
Lots of Japan-exclusive characters as you might have noticed. Some of them get pretty damn obscure to the extent where not even I can name all of them. If you can, not only are you terrifying, I'll hand you my Japanese diploma.
On the Sunsoft team, you might have noticed a penguin-looking character whose special move is, for whatever reason, making Kirby a Puyo Puyo blob. That penguin guy is actually from an NES game known as Hebereke (translation: "Shit-Faced Drunk"; no joke), better known in European and Australian circles as Ufouria. Because I will probably never have the opportunity to ever bring this up again, Hebereke's a game that I'm personally fond of that's pretty great, even in this age. That's weirdly ironic in and of itself, as it's essentially a Metroid clone done cuter, except I really don't like the original Metroid at all. Funky.
This video has Guilty Gear music. After the abomination that apparently was Guilty Gear 2, I'm probably the only person left on this forum that still cares about that series in a post-SFIV world, but I just thought I'd throw it out there. Blazblue, while nice, still isn't the same.
This blog turned out to be rather long, so if you're just looking for the tl;dr link to the review of P3P in question, I understand. Feel free to point yourself towards this direction to find what (I hope) you're looking for. For the rest of you, enjoy this really long post where I basically confess my love for dissecting gameplay mechanics and their significance to the overall experience to death. ----- Persona 3: FES was a really, really special game to me for a lot of reasons. Not only was it a very, very long RPG available at a very cheap retail price, but on a thematic level, it was a game that resonated with me quite profoundly on a personal level. Deeply psychological, intelligent, and referential of Jungian principles, it was a smart game that didn't slack off in either the gameplay or the storyline departments. I highly enjoyed being able to get to know and befriend the game's large cast as much as I did running around Tartarus, strategizing every battle and pushing the AI to its limits in terms of control. As a high schooler on the verge of graduation at the time of its release, it was a good opportunity to reflect on my own life as a school kid and ended that segment of my life on a high note, despite the personal troubles I had going on at the time.
Then Persona 4 came out in December that year and somehow managed to completely blow me away. I was skeptical that it could reach the same sorts of highs as FES did, but not only did it reach them, it surpassed them mightily. So much so, in fact, that I concluded my own review of it by saying that "While a lot of [Persona 4's] gameplay is derived from 3, at the same time it makes that game largely irrelevant by making a lot of much-needed improvements to create the PlayStation 2's last great RPG."
I still stand by those words, as if my perpetual use of a Chie icon on here wasn't indicative enough of that. In the wake of Persona 4, it was just too difficult for me to return to 3. I still loved that prequel for introducing me to an RPG franchise I could actually care about, but by and large, it was a thing that had to stay in the past. I tried to replay it again on a couple of occasions, but things just never panned out and I always lost steam quickly. It was a game that deserved all the praise that it got, especially as an RPG that was humanistic, but in the wake of something that, in my opinion, accomplished those same goals even better, Persona 3 was the sort of game that had to be reminisced about in relative terms.
Elizabeth, however, is someone you can still appreciate in this day and age. Leave it to Atlus to make something like Persona 3 Portable. It may not be a wholly necessary entry in the series in the grand scheme of things, but it turned out to do so many things right that I'm glad I took a chance and returned to that world. As it turns out, it's ultimately better than what I remembered it being. Now that I'm able to really look back at my own high school years and have a better understanding of myself, I think I had a better appreciation of the game's characters and their personal quandaries and, in turn, came to appreciate the story again quite a lot. Persona 3 has a different tone and a different demeanor in its approaches to the plot and gameplay compared to 4, but it's still thoughtful, provocative stuff. No game in the industry has really successfully replicated what that game accomplished and as such, a lot of it still holds up really well today.
The crux of that appreciation, however, lies in the fact that the gameplay was pretty significantly updated in a lot of spots. Had Atlus not done that, I would have been apathetic and almost certainly would not have found the motivation to see that story through to the end a second time. Persona games, as well as SMT games in general, have changed since Persona 3 was released. There was going to be work involved if Atlus wanted to make that game relevant for a third time. For the most part, it's a success. They took the base foundation of Persona 3 and really added a lot to it to make it a fuller experience. I felt like I accomplished a lot more even in my ordinary day-to-day antics in that game than I did with the original game and that really helped to provide an impetus for me to finish it.
The pressing question after all that now, therefore, is whether Persona 3 Portable accomplishes enough as a remake and as a regular game to surpass even Persona 4.
Some people have said yes. They've made some valid arguments and I respect those opinions. But, I still say no.
Indeed. As a fan of the series, I loved Persona 3 Portable very, very much and it made me enjoy the Persona 3 lore a lot more than I have in a very long time. I'll probably even end up doing a second run of it eventually. But for me, the game still has enough problems that it never gets all that close to being the series' pinnacle in the end. A lot of that has to do with it ironically importing a lot of features from Persona 4 to update the gameplay to current series standards. Do they work? Yes. Are they handy? Very. But do they feel integral to the experience, like they've always been a part of Persona 3 from the very beginning? No. Or at least I don't think so.
The basic reason as to why I feel that way is pretty simple. Even with all these new additions and enhancements to the game, Atlus didn't necessarily alter that core foundation very much to accommodate them. Sure, the battling system has been rebalanced so that it's usually way easier, even on harder difficulty settings, but Persona 3 Portable is, at its heart, still Persona 3 and that means that the new systems had to make certain compromises to work within the old ones. Like I said, they ultimately work fine, but I never got the impression that all of them were completely fluid additions that naturally worked within Persona 3 Portable's existing flow. What we have here is a game that tries really, really hard superficially to be like Persona 4, but lacks the means to actually ever feel like it.
A really vivid example of that is how cooperative attacks and AI assists work in the game. These are features that Persona 4 introduced, both of which were tied into the Social Links you had with your individual party members. If you wanted everyone in your ideal team to work in harmony and do everything they can to make your battling a success, then it was logical that you should go and hang out with them on your downtime. The more you got to know them, the more harmonious your battles were. It sounds lovely in theory and works even better in practice. The game's alternate opening video does a really good job showing off what that actually means in action, which I've included below.
(Since I didn't mention it in my already long review of Persona 3 Portable, I'm just gonna state for the record that the Social Link-based AI assists like ailment-ridding slaps and offers to help people up after they get knocked down are conspicuously absent from the game. I found that really odd and miss those little things.)
It was a formula that went a long way to making Persona 4's battles feel like they were fueled with honest teamwork, which I always thought was somewhat absent in the original Persona 3. Persona 3 Portable tries to emulate this by including co-op attacks (which are just everybody using the same bland animation to crit things) and the ability for them to take mortal blows. Although I really, really wish they had the same sort of flair and spunk that Persona 4's had, they ultimately work. The main issue is how you unlock them in the first place, which is via the main team Social Link that automatically levels up with the story, not by going through individual team members' Social Links. Some people will argue that it's Atlus' way of streamlining things so nobody is left out if you want to switch out your party, but I see things differently. Atlus retroactively implemented those Persona 4 features into Persona 3 Portable that way because the original game is unable to handle the gameplay mechanic of individual character unlocks well. That's entirely due to how the original guy's storyline was structured, such that you couldn't even Social Link with all of your teammates to begin with; only the girls.
The new selectable girl could have technically been able to reproduce the feature as it worked in Persona 4 since you could Social Link with all of SEES in her storyline, but then you'd have a really weird gameplay discretion between the two gender versions. That could have been resolved by altering the Social Link structure of the guy's route, too, but then you'd definitely have some fans complaining that his experience isn't true to the original game's vision. So Atlus swallowed the hard pill and made it work the way as it does, automatically unlocking once you've reached certain plot points. It's not broken by any means, but I feel that it subtracts a lot of the value and significance that feature was originally meant to give to the player. It's an ongoing issue that shows up in some other areas, too, but it was the worst in the Social Link-based combat mechanics, since I felt that in their original incarnation in Persona 4, that was one of many things that made, and continue to make, that game really, really special.
At the end of the day, Persona 3 Portable is hardly a bad game, as I wrote in my recent review of it on here. Hell, I was really addicted to it for nearly two weeks and there are very few games that do that for me anymore. It's still an excellent game and the new features, even if they're not perfect, are very welcome additions to the Persona 3 experience and enhance it in pretty significant ways. The presentation is a whole other ball of wax entirely, but that's not for me to discuss here. There's plenty to love about that game and I was glad that I got to have such a happy reunion with a beloved game years later. It was really wonderful to go back and revisit that plot and Social Links afresh as someone who's grown up a little bit since the original game came out. It may not hold quite as special of a place in my heart as Persona 4 and there are certainly bound to be people on the other side of the debating aisle that feel it and the original Persona 3 trump 4. And that's okay, because in the end, we all win pretty big by being able to play such fantastic games in the first place.
Regardless of which side we might be on, we can all totally get behind something like this. 24 Comments
The previous blog, as you might have noticed, was a rare occasion in which I got all SERIOUS BUSINESS. I don't wanna dwell on that any longer than I have to (plus, it's always kind of a downer to see that sort of post as your most recent one in the blog roll), so I'm going to spend this one doing a bunch of bullet points on random stuff. Game stuff. Movie stuff. Other stuff that comes to my mind. Stuff I probably shouldn't be thinking of because I should be in bed right now. You know. Stuff.
Let's get started.
Toy Story 3 is a pretty fantastic movie. Thankfully I didn't read Ebert's review ahead of time because bloody hell does he spoil the ever living daylights out of it, but I really liked it. It was really funny and emotional in all the right places and the short you see before the movie is great. You can tell Lasseter had a hand in-it due to the style, but I'll leave it to you to see what I mean.
Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne is an interesting game. I think that people looking into trying the SMT series probably shouldn't start with this one now that a whole lot of other, more accessible and explanatory games in the series have come in English, but for what it is, I like it. It still holds up, even if it's a less refined entry these days.
The only thing I know about the World Cup is that there are more vuvuzelas in it than actual spectators.
Publish This Book by Stephen Markley is a really humorous and interesting memoir. The concept is super meta in that it's a book about him trying to get that very book published and his execution of that formula makes for a fantastic read. Go pick it up if you ever see it at your Border's. He goes on a lot of hilarious tangents that make it worthwhile.
My copy of the Karate Kid should be coming in the mail this afternoon. Did I tell you I bought that instead of seeing the remake? Yeah. I did. Tonight should be great.
I'm also a sucker for good photo books. The same day I bought Publish This Book, I also bought Inside North Korea by Mark Edward Harris, which is more or less what it says it is. Good, humanistic photos coupled with well-written essays help really shine a light on that country's situation in a new light that isn't just entirely about politics.
I also bought Brutal Legend about two weeks ago. I wish that Erik Wolpaw had been retained to write it, since the game's dialog isn't quite as sharp as Psychonauts', but the story is still entertaining. Oh, but did I tell you how much I hate the RTS portions? I absolutely loathe them. I won't say they're completely broken, but they shouldn't have been included in the game. Not fun.
I also tried to restart MGS3 because I wanted to understand certain elements of 4's plot better, even if I had a passing familiarity with most of them. I'm so glad the new camera control in Subsistence is experimental because, man, you can still tell that game wasn't originally designed for it based on how Snake controlled. That was the main reason I stopped in the first place.
I need to go do a little grocery shopping soon. Lettuce, cheese, tomato sauce. (I love my pasta.) Any other ideas, Giant Bomb?
The results for my financial aid next school year also came in. From what I can tell, it'll be another year where grants pay for the actual tuition and the loans get used for apartment rent. I'm relieved, but I still need to focus on saving for my next lengthy study abroad trip/move to Japan.
Did I mention Totoro was in Toy Story 3? I had a pretty giddy nerdgasm when I spotted him in there. It's nice to see the Pixar-Ghibli relationship actually be made apparent on screen.
Now's as good a time as any, but I still don't like Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I get what it was going for, but dude... you can't take somebody raised purely on Picard at that point and expect them to like DSN.
Gabe Newell's appearance at the Sony press conference was interesting, as many people have already pointed out. Money probably changed hands, but knowing the politics behind Microsoft's game update policies, it's not hard to see why he eventually changed tune. His pride sure seemed hurt, though. It doesn't look like it was his first choice, by any means.
Last year's Summer of Arcade games on XBLA are on sale, so I finally got around to buying 'Splosion Man for 400 points. I now love that game very, very dearly. It does so much with such deliberately limited controls, letting the variety come from the level design instead of abilities. It's a gamble that works well. I may write a review, but no guarantees.
Man, how about that 3DS? For once, the immediate third party support for a Nintendo console doesn't seem so paltry. Knowing that the technology works as well as it does, too, is making me very seriously consider preordering one once that's possible. Here's hoping.
Speaking of preorders, why can I still not do that for Valkyria Chronicles 2 on Amazon yet? It's been up on Gamestop's site, but I have a $10 credit on Amazon and wanted to apply it then. I thought it would show up during E3 since it had a small presence there, but apparently not. Ah well.
I also just remembered I need to buy milk at the grocery story. I love milk. Do you? What's your take on milk?
I also have a bunch of unopened chips of different varieties sitting around. Colorado summers tend to kill my appetite, though, so things will probably stay that way for a while.
I'm sleepy, so I think I'm gonna call it quits for now. Let me know what you think of my grocery shopping choices and other such decisions, if only because you're kind enough to tell me that stuff.
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