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Banner Saga Trilogy (PS4) by jp (Dec 6th, 2025 at 14:27:00) |
I started playing this back in October - maybe earlier? - and it was really confusing for me. Mostly I kept making mistakes I blame on the interface. For example, I'd select a character, move it, and then try to attack only to realize that I wasn't adjacent to the enemy like I thought. So, I'd miss a turn, my characters would die - but, I moved on. In the sense that I know this game is supposed to be sad, there's attrition, you make do an move on. But overall combat was really fiddly for me - I'd bungle selecting characters, and I wasn't really understanding the system.. does facing matter? are there attacks of opportunity if you move away, etc. These aren't dealbreakers for me, I was happy to try to learn and figure things out, and since you can't really save, it just continues - I though I'd just see how far I could get. Especially since it seems really brutal! I think the upgrade points are basically how you heal? Only two points at a time - so, it really is attritional. Or maybe I'm really misunderstanding the progression system.
I did think it was interesting to follow the different stories - I have a hard time following the names and whatnot, but just seeing there were two groups, different character abilities, and such seems interesting.
Then other stuff got in the way and I wasn't able to continue playing for a few weeks.
I just came back to it, and wow - still the same UI stuff and ugh. I just don't feel like it's worth it to continue playing (a drawer full of other PS4 games doesn't help). I wonder if the console version is just worse than sitting at a desk on a PC? As in, would I make as many mistakes if I was on mouse and keyboard with the screen much closer to my face?
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Kirby Super Star Ultra (DS) by jp (Dec 6th, 2025 at 12:20:24) |
There's quite a bit to do, but most of it has started to feel a bit shallow. The dungeon exploring was perhaps my favorite, there's lots of exploring to do which was fun, and it isn't that hard, and the companion helper was also a neat idea (to be honest though, I kept forgetting to "activate") - but overall I'm looking at the stack of DS games I still want to play (it's been getting quite a bit smaller, which is good -since the 3DS pile now looms) that I've decided to shelve this one.
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Persona 5 Royal (PS5) by dkirschner (Dec 6th, 2025 at 11:47:01) |
This game was SO friggin long. 135 hours. I have been playing it since February (it is now December). And I didn’t even do the third semester and final palace in the Royal edition, which I read add another 10-20 hours. I don’t have the motivation to do any more. I finished the main game, saw the story build-up for the third semester after New Year’s (which I didn’t know I had fulfilled the conditions to unlock), and called it done. I clocked about 80 hours in Persona 4, so 5 is over 50% longer. I loved the game overall, but it kept going and going and going; there was no need for the extreme length. There are a lot of palaces (main dungeons), a huge dungeon called Mementos (full of side quests and the end of the game; like HUGE, literally at least 55 floors [I remember a character commenting on that number]), tons of confidants (characters with whom you forge social bonds), creating and fusing personas, five social characteristics to level up, tons of dialogue (often through long text chains), and just a really long, involved story with a lot of side activities to do. It’s enormous. It reminds me of the rebooted Assassin’s Creed games that were so much longer beginning with the PS4 games compared to those before. I really liked those first two PS4 Assassin’s Creed games, but I wanted something shorter and more streamlined. If there is a Persona 6, I will be skipping it unless it is significantly shorter and changes up the formula.
There really isn’t too much to say about this that I didn’t say about Persona 3 and 4. I made an entry for Persona 4 over 10 years ago! Re-reading it sounded like I was basically describing Persona 5 back then. You’re a displaced troubled youth. Weird stuff is happening, mysterious deaths and people going insane. You meet people at school, meet a talking cat, and get a mysterious phone app that transports you to strange places. You become the Phantom Thieves, who identify rotten adults and change their hearts by going into their “palaces” (minds), stealing their treasures (desires) and forcing them to confess to their misdeeds. In so doing, the Phantom Thieves become social media famous, until the public turns against them. You survive an interrogation (a cool narrative device that lasts about half the game), meet new people, recruit them to the team, go up against bigger and badder adults as you work your way toward the true culprit behind the mysterious deaths and insanities. (That’s when I thought the game was over, but surprise, there is more plot and a true boss after what you think is the last boss, and that’s like another 10 hours of gameplay!!). Along the way, you help all sorts of people with their problems and potentially date a girl.
Combat operates pretty much the same as I remember. There are all the standard Shin Megami Tensei personas and magics. You play a game of strengths and weaknesses in combat, exploiting enemy vulnerabilities for advantage in battle. When you hit an enemy's weakness (e.g., use a fire spell on an enemy weak to fire), you knock them down and get an extra turn. If you knock all enemies down, you perform a powerful group attack. You can recruit different personas to enhance your own arsenal and can fuse personas to create stronger ones to mix-and-match skills to suit your purposes. For example, for most of the game, I created personas with a high magic stat that could use most elements. Whatever I didn’t have at the ready, I would choose party members who had what I was missing. By the end of the game, I was fusing personas focusing on buffs and debuffs because, as “exploit the weakness” combat systems always go, the toughest enemies have no weaknesses, and so you end up being better off going for pure damage, buffing your party, and debuffing the enemies. All the later bosses basically faced me at an attack power and defense deficit because I constantly debuffed them. Every time a boss raised its attack, I nullified it, and I had a few party members always ready to raise my own attack and defense and remove status ailments. Combat could be challenging at times (some particularly nasty enemies or combinations of enemies, some tough bosses), but usually it was a cakewalk, with me by the end of the game using auto-attack most of the time to win regular battles.
Outside of palaces, you are living the daily life of a teenager in Japan, going to school, playing sports, eating ramen, etc. You choose how to spend your time after school, in the evenings, and on weekends, strategically hanging out with people and engaging in activities to raise stats and strengthen social bonds. Or, you’re just really interested in all these characters’ side stories! I enjoyed all of them. One girl is an expert shogi player, but her mother wants to use her shogi fame to make her an idol. Another girl is trying to help a friend who is dating a bad guy who is attempting to exploit her for sex work. You help your best guy friend mediate conflict between his old track teammates. You meet a fortune teller who is caught up in a grift. There is a gamer kid who you train with and a former yakuza arms dealer who you go to work for. And like 15 more. There is a TON of story in this game. I really, really enjoyed the narratives, dialogue-heavy though the game is.
I guess in the end, that’s really what I was playing for was to see what would happen with all these characters and in the main story. The dungeons ended up getting pretty grindy and same-y with puzzles that just padded them out. Plus, I was way over-leveled. I got some accessories at the beginning of the game that increased experience gain by 15%. Any item that increases experience gain is an awesome long-term investment. I mean, 15% bonus XP in every battle for 135 hours, what could be more overpowered? I equipped that accessory on every character, ignoring all other accessories, such that by the end of the game, I was in the high 70s, with personas in the low 80s. The internet says you should be tackling the final boss around level 70. I completely dominated the final boss, but see how he could have been trickier if I was 10 levels lower (by the high 70s, all your party members' personas' skills are maxed out and, of course, everyone has higher stats, more HP, and more SP).
It was a fun, long ride, with great characters and interesting themes. I am teaching an Introduction to Psychology course for the first time right now, so it was cool to see how the game plays with concepts like the collective unconscious and, well, personas. Very Jungian. There is excellent story payoff at the end. You finally figure out what’s up with Mona/Morgana. However, if I knew before playing that it would be so long and so similar to previous Persona games, I would not have picked it up. Extremely glad to be done and start the next (also long, but nowhere near this long) Playstation game on my list, Red Dead Redemption 2 (also I believe the final PS4 game in my backlog and wishlist!).
PS, I forgot to mention how stylish the game is. It looks and sounds super slick. And the music is AWESOME!
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Dec 6th, 2025 at 11:50:31.
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Etheria Odyssey (DS) by frythyrice (Dec 2nd, 2025 at 01:25:38) |
I dunno how to make stuff like this but I'll try my best!!
My current party consists of a Protector, Landsknecht, Alchemist, Survivalist and a Medic. I don't know how to build my characters. So far my Landsknecht has been a pretty good damage dealer so I'm happy with that. I'm planning on making the Protector just one big meat shield, which is going well.
I just finished the first floor. The jump in damage done by the enemies shocked me!! What do you mean the deer oneshots both my Protector and Landsknecht!! Not cool!!! I feel like I'll be stuck grinding to level up my characters or at least get more money to get better gear. Sighhh.. It's okay though, I gotta take it slow. Taking it slow is good :^)
I have to build my Alchemist but i dunno as what. I either fuck around and find out or look up some stuff online. My medic's also just fine. I should try the other characters too for a change too.
Overall fun :^) and very difficult :^( Very cool dungeon crawler with the map making mechanic. Useful and cool to do!!
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Divinity: Original Sin II (PC) by dkirschner (Dec 1st, 2025 at 21:06:47) |
The “toolbox” feel of Divinity: Original Sin 2 is incredible. I am barely through the second act, haven’t even left Reaper’s Eye, and have clocked nearly 30 hours. I’ve explored every bit of every area I can and have been flummoxed by locked chests, complex puzzles, and difficult encounters. Often, I have been stuck on something only to have an “a-ha!” moment. For example, I remember when I realized the value of the teleport spell. This spell is amazing. Cast it on an object and then select where to move the object. It works on most anything—chests, items, even enemies. Chest stuck behind a locked gate? Teleport it to your side. Enemy too close to you in combat? Drop it off a cliff. One of your characters needs to be on the other side of the battlefield, but is slowed and would take three turns to get there? Boom. Teleport him. There are so many abilities like this that have numerous uses that aren’t obvious at first glance. At some point, I realized that if I kept spare junk weapons in my inventory, I could use them to bust down doors. Since they’re junk, it doesn’t matter if they break. At some point, I realized that I could make great use of my undead character being healed by poison. So, I always keep a poison wand on him, all poison items go to him, etc., and he can always heal himself by attacking himself. At some point, I realized that it might be cool to put one point of Necromancer on each of my mages. Necromancer heals the caster by 10% of damage dealt (20% at level 2, etc.). So now all my mages heal for 10% of damage dealt. I am sure there are dozens more such discoveries to be had.
This makes combat fascinating and extremely dynamic. It is based on elements—fire, electricity, oil, ice, poison, blood, steam, etc.—being manipulated on the battlefield. I mean, you can choose to ignore elements, but that would be stupid. You can use them to your great advantage, and accidentally to your great detriment, and enemies will use them too. For example, have a character hurl an oily rock that coats characters and surfaces in oil, then have another character launch a fireball at the oil. BOOM! Explosion. Have a character cast raining blood, which causes enemies to bleed if they don’t have physical armor. Then have another character use a lightning attack, which electrifies the blood. A character on fire? Cast rain to extinguish all the fire. But watch out for an enemy to blast the water surfaces with lightning and zap your previously immolated character. The number of interlocking effects and systems in this game is nuts.
My party is magic-heavy. I have a summoner (my main character, the Red Prince), a fire/geo mage (Fane, the undead), an aero/water mage (Lohse), and a dual-wielding rogue (the woman who is possessed by a demon). The magic variety is awesome because I often have elemental control of the battlefield. But, if there are a lot of enemies with high magic armor, or a lot of physically strong enemies who can get up close, then I can have some trouble. Usually, my rogue can lock down any mages or archers who are around. The trick there is getting her to them quickly (hello teleport) so she can kill one and move on to the next. And my magic users obliterate melee enemies who tend to have low magic armor. The summoner is especially badass because his familiar acts as an extra character, and a strong one at that. Plus, he can summon totems that take a free shot per round at an enemy. The familiar and the totems also act as damage sponges; sometimes enemies will attack them instead of my main party members. I’ll often just summon the familiar out in front of the party to serve as a tank, then bombard enemies with spells from the mages, while the rogue runs around the edges of the battlefield disposing of mages or archers who might be sniping from above. The setup works pretty well! One drawback is equipment though; I keep getting all these badass two-handed swords, heavy armor, strength equipment, crossbows, etc., with no one to use them, and I only get so much equipment that is great for mages, with three mages to share it.
Story-wise, I am loving the world and the characters in it. It’s dark, funny, deep, creative—extremely well written. It was just revealed to me that each of the main playable characters (there are six or seven playable characters, but you can only have four in your party; no idea what happens to the others right now) is chosen by a different god to become The One. It introduced conflict between me and my party in what was previously a collaborative venture! Now The Red Prince (me) is supposed to distrust everyone else because they’ve all been summoned by different gods, and my god told me outright to kill one of my party members (my aero/water mage, who is the healer!). I don’t want to kill any of my party members! I’m so curious about how these intertwining playable character narratives flow together, because any one of them can be you, the main character. That means that the game is a bit different every time, aside from the race/class/background stuff, because each character essentially has their own hero arc.
I started off playing this co-op with a friend, which had its own cool features, though we only played through the tutorial together before I got busy, put the game down for a long time, and then just continued on alone. It was fun fighting together, as you can play off each other in terms of battlefield elements and coordinate in interesting ways. I would like to play some more co-op; however, given the narrative heavy nature of the game and all the inventory management slowing me down (probably the only downside), I don’t think I would enjoy playing co-op except for the combat.
Anyway, I am almost off of Reaper’s Eye, and then on to the next act! Excited to see where this one goes.
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Grand Theft Auto San Andreas (Arcade) by TKYROS |
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most recent entry: Wednesday 27 October, 2010
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It has been almost 4 years since I've touched San Andreas. I still remember when I was really into it when I was younger. I had always been about trying to complete all the missions, get all the extras, and do the main part of the game, with of course occasionally having a little fun with all the different stuff you can do. Considering how long it had been since I had played this game last, I had decided to start this game simply by playing the missions straight through and refresh my memory of the general feeling of this game.
At the start of the game, right away I am framed by corrupt cops for a crime that I did not even commit so they pretty much have me to do as they please. Along with this, I discover that I return to find out how my character's mom was killed and meet all of my “bros” and “homies”. I am introduced to my brother but I am not welcome back to my character's old neighborhood at first. You learn about your brother Sweet and how you don't have the best relationship at this point. You also have smoke who is for the most part on your side as well.
You're also explained how you're old home is used for a save point at this point of the game. After learning what I've learned, I'd give this a general sign of video games. How you're home, or base in other games, is like your safe haven and where you are able to sleep, and save your progress. You're also introduced to Ryder, a smoker and another one who is on your side, aside from Smoke (who I think is the most hilarious character). Overall, you're not very well respected as of right now in your area since you've ran away. In what I would consider the first real mission we need to take out a pizza joint and take out the owner. Right off the bat, you are given a choice. Similar to how we had discussed in GOW3 with Kratos, the only way to move on through the storyline in this game is to kill a person who was cleaning the graffiti off of walls to keep his place clean. A little Ethical Egoism is in there with a hint of Utilitarianism. By killing this man, you gain respect from your homies, and if you don't, not only can you not move on in the game, you lose respect as well. So of course, I had to do what I had to do, which brings me to another point. In GTAIII, if I remember correctly, all missions from the get co was simply cash. Now, in the first mission and I believe the next one to come, you earn more respect.
With this, I feel it is a little stereotyped in the black neighborhoods, how you need to earn respect to make sure you are safe in your area and in order to do that, need to kill people, etc... The next mission, in my opinion, is even more stereotypical, how I need to spray paint some of our walls to make this neighborhood again “ours” and to get it away from one of the main antagonists of this game known as the Ballas, who are for the most part Mexican, surprise surprise another minority.
In the next major part of the game, you learn how the hood is getting “messed up” by the fact cocaine has been sold to your people and you need to stop them and “clean up” the hood and, not surprisingly, the only way to do this is to take out the Ballas who have been making the crack. Again, this game is showing the stereotype of drugs and having to kill people and again leaves the player the choice of killing the Ballas to move on in the game and develop more of the plot, along with getting more respect, or not being able to and essentially you get killed and fail the mission. In other words, to do what is considered “good” in this game, you have to do what most would consider “evil”. Of course, most would find this offensive, however, it gives the player a sense of what truly is going on in these types of neighborhoods, specifically in LA. Although this is stereotyped for the most part, I am a firm believe that stereotypes exist because 75% of the time they are true and accurate.
In the next mission, they waste no time by going on to another major stereotype in these types of neighborhoods. However, they decide to show a little humor in this next stereotype by showing how blacks love fried chicken and how certain ones can eat a ton of it, even in certain situations. However, in the midst of their feast they get interrupted by a drive by by the Ballas and you of course are driving at this point and need to help Ryder and Sweet take them out, and of course if you drive away, you get yelled at to go back and possibly fail the mission. Again, left with that choice. Seems to be a common scenario in these first few missions, and unfortunately, I do not remember if that is the case throughout the rest of the game, but I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't.
So after this mission is where I ended my first GTASA session. And overall, there is a lot of stereotyping in these first few missions, but in my opinion, accurately depicts what goes on in essentially what I would call the ghetto. Family is important among this group along with respect that one needs to earn amongst his “bros” and “homies”, and you do that through doing these missions, in which for the most part I, along with others, would consider evil. I know that it is fake in this game, but these are events that happen in real life in these poor areas amongst different minorities. Rockstar, I believe, tries to show this in their game and does a fairly good job, except for a few unrealistic aspects, such as the fact that the cops simply ignore you as you are shooting at a car, but then again, it is possible that they are so corrupt that they don't want to even get involved. There are many different interpretations that can be taken at this game. My interpretation is that it can inform someone of what truly goes on through what essentially is entertaining, but does contain a deeper message.
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