Game-Fu

It's a love-hate thing

22 Jul I know it’s been a while since I last posted ANYTHING, but it’s been a while since I last put any substantial amount of time into gaming. I had a really long Internet down time due to me sending my laptop away for repair. I’d bought Persona 3 Portable months ago but stopped halfway through. I’m pretty sure it’s because that was around the time I bought Final Fantasy Dissidia and switched my major. In any case, P3P is a worthy game to be sure. I’d played the original Persona 3 on the Playstation and the upgraded and expanded Persona 3 FES, both The Journey and The Answer. As a quick explain, The Journey is the original P3 game whereas The Answer is the direct sequel in which you control the android Aigis, one of your party members from the main game. The Answer is FUCKING HARD. I haven’t finished it myself because of its hardness but one day I will get back to it. In terms of the original P3 game itself, I’ve completed it once with a New Game+ cycle and a Persona Compendium at about 94% completion. However, I didn’t spend much time on side quests. P3P, however, I have completed twice and am currently on my third playthrough, having steadily worked through most of the side quests both times.  First of all, P3P is different from the original in that you can choose the gender of your Main Character (MC). While this may not seem like a big deal, the Persona franchise is essentially a social simulation game with a dungeon and a compendium of summons known as Persona to use in a turn-based battle system. You can befriend many NPCs in order to establish Social Links (Slinks) all of which correspond to a particular tarot arcana, which is the species or order of the Personae and monsters as well as the franchise theme. As your friendships level up, your ability to fuse new Personae according to the tarot of your Slink increases. This is extremely important. Normally, you cannot receive or fuse Personae whose level is higher than your own. However, you can fuse two or more of your Personae to create a completely new one - for as long as its base level is the same or lower than your level. Depending on how strong your Slinks are, you achieve bonus EXP points when you fuse Personae of a certain arcana, so your newly fused Personae can level up immediately and be of a much higher level than you yourself. To sum up quickly, assume that the Star arcana Slink has been maxed out. If you at level 80 fuse your Personae to produce a Persona of the Star arcana, for example Helel or Setanta (both of whom have a base level that is lower than 80 thus enabling their fusion in the first place), your new Persona will receive bonus EXP, for example, 100,000. So immediately after it is fused, your Persona levels up and may possibly achieve level 90 or something. Not only does this make them (and you) stronger, they also learn new and powerful attacks. Therefore, Slinks is crucial to the game.  With all of this in mind, being able to choose the gender of your MC gives a huge diversity of Slinks available. The people you befriend are different depending on this choice. In my opinion, the female path gives you much greater variety and enables you to befriend everyone in your party whereas in the original, you are not able to do this. Furthermore, in the original, you could only forge romantic relationships with friends of the opposite gender. P3P with the female path allows you to be friends or lovers to your discretion. They’ve taken a lot of the improvements from the successor, Persona 4, and applied it to this game, among which - and this is a HUGE improvement - is the ability to directly command all your party members. In the original, you had to rely completely on AI. Thank god for this improvement. A disappointment in P3P would be the lack of polygonal models you can control outside of the dungeon, but this is the effect of space shortage. In the original, you consistently control your MC and can make him walk and run around the world. Now, the MC is represented by a dot you move around the screen. However, using the SQUARE button, you can directly choose which destination you’d like for as long as it changes the map location. Also, since you aren’t controlling a physical character, shortcuts are possible since you only need to move your cursor across the screen instead of dodging corners and walls. This flaw is not so terrible if you think about the trade-off. In addition to a new game, you also get two bonus dungeons (as opposed to the original’s one).  Now that all the technical stuff is out of the way, what can I say about this game? How on earth have I been able to play through it twice and go on a third time? The fact that it’s a portable game is a BIG winner. It doesn’t rely on high end graphics and the only time you really need to physically control your character is in the dungeons, where your reflexes actually determine whether you can ambush your enemies. It’s a social simulator at heart and so being able to play the game without plugging it into a TV is a plus. I have played the game non-stop through several days nearly everywhere I could.  I played on Normal mode each time, so there was a certain level of difficulty involved, but having done two playthroughs while retaining my New Game+ cycles, it made it a lot easier to enjoy other portions of the game that didn’t involve grinding (made easier since you can send your team out to level up on their own) or increasing your own personal stats. Even the farming side quests, which usually annoy the crap out of me, became a lot more pleasant because you weren’t doing it in between dying at the hands of enemies meant to level you up. The first time I ended the game, I shorted out with the Bad Ending so I could quickly re-do some decisions. The second time I ended, it was with the Good Ending, but I didn’t manage to max out all my social links. I actually only managed to finish the last one halfway. My side quests also were only nearly complete. So the third playthrough is a matter of trying for a perfect game. While I’m not usually the kind of gamer who does perfect games, somehow, P3P is a game that is not particularly difficult to enjoy this way. There’s something to be said about the way it handles its characters and the depth in the relationships.

I know it’s been a while since I last posted ANYTHING, but it’s been a while since I last put any substantial amount of time into gaming.

I had a really long Internet down time due to me sending my laptop away for repair. I’d bought Persona 3 Portable months ago but stopped halfway through. I’m pretty sure it’s because that was around the time I bought Final Fantasy Dissidia and switched my major. In any case, P3P is a worthy game to be sure. I’d played the original Persona 3 on the Playstation and the upgraded and expanded Persona 3 FES, both The Journey and The Answer. As a quick explain, The Journey is the original P3 game whereas The Answer is the direct sequel in which you control the android Aigis, one of your party members from the main game. The Answer is FUCKING HARD. I haven’t finished it myself because of its hardness but one day I will get back to it. In terms of the original P3 game itself, I’ve completed it once with a New Game+ cycle and a Persona Compendium at about 94% completion. However, I didn’t spend much time on side quests.

P3P, however, I have completed twice and am currently on my third playthrough, having steadily worked through most of the side quests both times. 

First of all, P3P is different from the original in that you can choose the gender of your Main Character (MC). While this may not seem like a big deal, the Persona franchise is essentially a social simulation game with a dungeon and a compendium of summons known as Persona to use in a turn-based battle system. You can befriend many NPCs in order to establish Social Links (Slinks) all of which correspond to a particular tarot arcana, which is the species or order of the Personae and monsters as well as the franchise theme.

As your friendships level up, your ability to fuse new Personae according to the tarot of your Slink increases. This is extremely important. Normally, you cannot receive or fuse Personae whose level is higher than your own. However, you can fuse two or more of your Personae to create a completely new one - for as long as its base level is the same or lower than your level. Depending on how strong your Slinks are, you achieve bonus EXP points when you fuse Personae of a certain arcana, so your newly fused Personae can level up immediately and be of a much higher level than you yourself.

To sum up quickly, assume that the Star arcana Slink has been maxed out. If you at level 80 fuse your Personae to produce a Persona of the Star arcana, for example Helel or Setanta (both of whom have a base level that is lower than 80 thus enabling their fusion in the first place), your new Persona will receive bonus EXP, for example, 100,000. So immediately after it is fused, your Persona levels up and may possibly achieve level 90 or something. Not only does this make them (and you) stronger, they also learn new and powerful attacks. Therefore, Slinks is crucial to the game. 

With all of this in mind, being able to choose the gender of your MC gives a huge diversity of Slinks available. The people you befriend are different depending on this choice. In my opinion, the female path gives you much greater variety and enables you to befriend everyone in your party whereas in the original, you are not able to do this. Furthermore, in the original, you could only forge romantic relationships with friends of the opposite gender. P3P with the female path allows you to be friends or lovers to your discretion. They’ve taken a lot of the improvements from the successor, Persona 4, and applied it to this game, among which - and this is a HUGE improvement - is the ability to directly command all your party members. In the original, you had to rely completely on AI. Thank god for this improvement.

A disappointment in P3P would be the lack of polygonal models you can control outside of the dungeon, but this is the effect of space shortage. In the original, you consistently control your MC and can make him walk and run around the world. Now, the MC is represented by a dot you move around the screen. However, using the SQUARE button, you can directly choose which destination you’d like for as long as it changes the map location. Also, since you aren’t controlling a physical character, shortcuts are possible since you only need to move your cursor across the screen instead of dodging corners and walls. This flaw is not so terrible if you think about the trade-off. In addition to a new game, you also get two bonus dungeons (as opposed to the original’s one). 

Now that all the technical stuff is out of the way, what can I say about this game? How on earth have I been able to play through it twice and go on a third time?

The fact that it’s a portable game is a BIG winner. It doesn’t rely on high end graphics and the only time you really need to physically control your character is in the dungeons, where your reflexes actually determine whether you can ambush your enemies. It’s a social simulator at heart and so being able to play the game without plugging it into a TV is a plus. I have played the game non-stop through several days nearly everywhere I could. 

I played on Normal mode each time, so there was a certain level of difficulty involved, but having done two playthroughs while retaining my New Game+ cycles, it made it a lot easier to enjoy other portions of the game that didn’t involve grinding (made easier since you can send your team out to level up on their own) or increasing your own personal stats. Even the farming side quests, which usually annoy the crap out of me, became a lot more pleasant because you weren’t doing it in between dying at the hands of enemies meant to level you up.

The first time I ended the game, I shorted out with the Bad Ending so I could quickly re-do some decisions. The second time I ended, it was with the Good Ending, but I didn’t manage to max out all my social links. I actually only managed to finish the last one halfway. My side quests also were only nearly complete. So the third playthrough is a matter of trying for a perfect game. While I’m not usually the kind of gamer who does perfect games, somehow, P3P is a game that is not particularly difficult to enjoy this way. There’s something to be said about the way it handles its characters and the depth in the relationships.

29 May I’m re-playing FFX now and dear god, Rikku is the most adorable character EVER. I wish her rumoured spin-off game was real.

I’m re-playing FFX now and dear god, Rikku is the most adorable character EVER. I wish her rumoured spin-off game was real.

03 Feb

We had a few other conversations, but all of that is null and void right now.

  • BACON: okay i just came back to tell you
  • BACON: http://www.ff-xiii.net/index.php?page=article&article=No-Towns-Because-They-Are-Too-Much-Work--514
  • BACON: TOO MUCH WORK TO MAKE-A THE TOWNS
  • BACON: WELL MAYBE YOU SHOULD HAVE MADE LESS AERITH MOTHERFUCKERS
  • HANA: ..........WOW
  • HANA: WOW
  • HANA: I JUST
  • HANA: WOW
  • BACON: IF ASSASSINS CREED CAN DO IT
  • BACON: CANT LITTLE OLD SQUARE DO IT
  • HANA: DEAR SQUARE
  • HANA: I JUST LOST ALL THE RESPECT I HAD REGAINED FOR YOU THROUGH THIS PROJECT
  • BACON: I THINK ITS ALSO HARD TO MAKE SPACESHIT
  • BACON: AND ALL THAT FANCY HAIR AND SYMMETRICAL FACES
  • BACON: DFSLKDFLKGKDFLGD OK
  • HANA: I AM
  • HANA: SO
  • HANA: FOR FUCK'S SAKE
  • HANA: GOOD NIGHT MAN
  • HANA: GOOD NIGHT
  • BACON: NIGHT BB
  • BACON: NIGHT 8[
07 Dec

A good summary of Dissidia

  • CHLOE: JECHT. FREAKING. JECHT.
  • HANA: I KNOW HOLY MONKEYBALLS
  • HANA: HE IS SO BADASS
  • HANA: I KIND OF WISH HE WERE MY DAD
  • HANA: SO HE COULD KICK MY ASS
  • HANA: AND INSULT ME
  • HANA: AND MAKE ME AWESOME AT BLITZBALL.
  • HANA: HE IS ~*THAT*~ AMAZING.
07 Oct

Vexen looks really horrible in 385/2 Days

Seriously.

07 Oct I kind of love Google.

I kind of love Google.

07 Oct

Final Fantasy Tactics A2 and Kingdom Hearts 385/2 Days

Hello DS land.

So, I finally got my hands on both these games.

  1. At Gamestop, they had ONE FFTA2 game in stock but as much as we scoured the shelves, we couldn’t find the case, so they let me have the game for $10 less - the ‘pre-owned’ price. Downside: a blank cover with nothing inside.
  2. I finally managed to hack the stupid 385/2 Days rom with success after a few days of attempts; some issues with my JON STEWART micro SD - must be getting old - so I had to switch to my DINGLEBOB.

FFTA2 has been a delight. I am in love with FFT, both War of the Lions and now Grimoire of the Rift, and they just do everything right. The battle system is fab (especially A2’s improvement on Moving and Acting - you can cancel any of them before you execute an action, so if you move somewhere and your action doesn’t hit your targeted area, you can just cancel all of that and re-strategise + RE-EQUIPING AND JOB CHANGE RIGHT BEFORE BATTLE AHHHHHH [okay fine it’s because of the stupid Law but geez it makes me happy]) and Luso is adowoobie. I just want to pet him. He seems so SENSIBLE. Also, want to kick Adelle’s ass but I’m sure she’ll come in handy.

AND WHEN THAT THING HAPPENED TO CID. I was literally like HOLY SHIT NOOOOOOOO but then it was okay and I was okay again. In hindsight, it was good that he stayed a guest character. If he was part of my party, I would have WEPT at him being out of commission. I think my issues at this point would be the levelling up. Farming and Shopping isn’t so bad - the prices are affordable and you can get a steady stream of income if you play your cards right. The Questing, however, can be a kick in the ass. I want to level up so I can do certain shit, but due to the lack of random encounters, this has to be accomplished through quests that you may not even be prepared for. And that SUCKS.

The job system is really interesting, especially considering the fact that you can keep all the skills you learnt. Now if only the job-evolution made SENSE.

385/2 Days (let’s abbreviate it to KH3D) is… well, the thing is that I HAVE NOT FINISHED THE BLOODY TUTORIALS YET. It suffers from the very same annoyance KH2 had, and that was the never. Ending. Tutorials. That spread out for DAYS. To make matters worse there are cut. Scenes. Between. EACH. TUTORIAL. And each tutorial covers ONE COMMAND. ONE COMMAND. ONE. I don’t see why they couldn’t, like NORMAL HUMAN BEINGS, integrate the “INTRICACIES” of Attacking, Magic-casting, Item-using and “the Triangle Button i.e. Examine, Open, Talk, Etc.” in ONE TUTORIAL. I get the need to make it seem like Roxas is a zombie idiot for the first week, but seriously? You could just teach him all of that and make him practice on his own. THAT’S HOW YOU OVERCOME GAME/PLOT HOLES. Unless you’re trying to stretch out play time. Then you’re just assholes.

Okay, okay, on one hand, I’ve begun hating Nomura with a fucking passion { my personal opinion research paper title: Why I Hate Tetsuya Nomura (But Will Buy His Video Games Anyway Even Though I Don’t Want To) } but seeeeriously? God. God.

FINE so anyway. Things I do like about KH3D: familiar game controls. They managed to overcome the issue of the lack of analog controllers pretty well. The only problem I’d think is the suggested use of the stylus to control the camera because you’d be using both hands on the buttons, so in-battle, you’d have to run around and R1 lock-on to enemies to get the angles you’d need. Again, I haven’t gone too far due to the 9203582395823095 tutorials I need to get through and will probably have better things to say once I actually PLAY the game on its own. It’s becoming too much like a graphic novel, in my opinion. It’s dangling a carrot. Play-cut scene-play-cut scene is working out crappily right now. Just stick to all cut scene, all game play. It just works.

27 Aug

thedailywhat:

(Faux) Movie Trailer of the Day: I would watch the hell out of Mario Kart: The Movie.

[via.]

19 Aug Best poster ever.

Best poster ever.

10 Aug This is kind of embarrassing, but this guy holds serious sex appeal for me. I mean, he can be considered one of the typical gaming archetypes, but Auron’s the only one I’ve ever really… guhhh‘d over. Besides that, I adore everything about his character’s design, though I’m not sure how much of it plays into my attraction to him. Every time I see him, I’m afraid I’ll literally cream myself silly. God.

This is kind of embarrassing, but this guy holds serious sex appeal for me. I mean, he can be considered one of the typical gaming archetypes, but Auron’s the only one I’ve ever really… guhhh‘d over. Besides that, I adore everything about his character’s design, though I’m not sure how much of it plays into my attraction to him.

Every time I see him, I’m afraid I’ll literally cream myself silly. God.