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Jan 15th, 2008 at 05:22:36 - Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 (PS2) |
GAMEPLAY(2)
Starting off with how the story develops, it certainly starts hitting that high-caliber epic quality of good RPGs after a while. After the first full-moon battle, there are little lead-up developments to the next dispersed in daily happenings. Your main allies develop very well just through the basic plot, and some just become very real feeling - you know, their own history, problems, secrets and motivations for being in the group. Best of all is the little personality traits that make them more realistic; for instance this one guy(Junpei) is such a love/hate character for me - he is a hilarious comic-relief at times, yet is a horrible team player on missions, but he has insecurities behind his uncooperative actions. I could go on about my faves too, but all the main characters are likable in some way, and dislikable in other ways-just not as extreme as Junpei-which makes them well-developed for me. New obstacles soon arise, and little scenes of character or story development just keeps you hyped up for the next full-moon; it's like mini story arcs with climaxes etc. at times.
A good in-between-character-development-and-game-systems aspect to talk about is the "Social Links" with NPCs (eventually these include some of your main allies). I had not mentioned previously that this game has many references to tarot, not just half-assed mentions of the Death card or Tower either. It is intertwined with the gameplay and, from what I can tell, the story. Anyway, each social link corresponds with one of the major arcana (usually with a good reason for which one it is) and increasing that social link through interactions with that character through some personal side-story gives extra levels to persona you create in the same arcana category. Also, completely finishing the NPC's story and "maxing" the social link gives access to creating the most powerful persona in that arcana, usually powerful and full of rare abilities - more on that later. The true beauty of the social links is how rewarding some of them are without the levels and persona and whatnot; some of the NPCs develop almost as well as your main allies through these "side-stories". Granted, the NPCs are usually more one-dimensional, but it is surprising how much color is given to the game world from these optional undertakings. After a while, one works out how to increase social links efficiently by learning NPC's schedules while doing the aforementioned stat increasing during times when there are no social links to be done.
Lastly, although battles and climbing through Tartarus don't change much, some things spice it up. First of all, higher levels=longer time before getting tired=better tower runs. Also, a certain NPC will begin giving you sidequests, arguably more like challenges, to do after the first full-moon for usually quite nifty rewards. Also, after certain boss battles, you get new tactics (AI Patterns) for teammates and some of these come at just the right time (right before you really need them). Of course, there is also the occasional new teammate; there is also quite a bit of flexibility in which teammates you want to level up at what time, due to the tried-and-true lower level members get more experience scheme. The real deal here however, is after the compendium opens up after the first full moon, you can recall personas you have used in fusing new personas. Also, higher levels and social links open up more possibilities all the time. Fiddling around with creating custom personas is a huge reason to continue the tower crawling. This aspect may be better for discussion in...
DESIGN
One of the best aspects of the game, and certainly a big part of that emerging complexity, is the persona fusing system. I can see why series fans so highly praise this part of the game. One way to put it is: It came before Pokemon, and it is way better. Granted, it does not have the social factor of trading and battling with friends that made Pokemon so successful (and possibly cuteness, especially compared to the personas, which are mostly references to mythology), but it makes up for it in having a system that, from what I have heard, started out better than what Pokemon has become over time. It's all there: elemental properties, passive skills, skill inheritance manipulating/rules, double-team attacks and moreso in other games in the series, multiple combatants. And the Persona 3 system is even considered "dumbed-down" by some hardcore series' fans. Suffice to say, you can spend hours upon hours making your perfect team of persona and mastering the skill inheritance system.
Unfortunately, it seems most other design aspects I have covered in my gameplay sections. Excuse my bad planning, but I'll summarize or point out some aspects here: The most innovative part was likely the social links, few other games have such great development of NPCs through side-stories, and with a gameplay reward for the players who need more than just the added interaction as incentive. The level design is hit-or-miss depending on if you like randomly generated floors with infrequent changes in visual design; the non-random parts are average I'd say. The usual RPG conventions are present in challenge (harder enemies, objectives), conflict(through the story and character interactions), and interest(new possibilities, story developments, getting stronger). One thing I would like to note is that people these days complain too much about repetition in games; the way I see it, all games have a hella lot of repetition in some form, the important thing is if the game can make it fun each time. This game does that quite well I think, which is important for an RPG. This also contributes to a tone that this game pulls off pretty well - a tone of everyday life, including how repetitive it can be, yet how great it can be. To reference a great little thought by Sayuri, about a song whose melody repeats itself over and over - but each time the tune gets just a little bit more rich, a little bit more beautiful as little layers are added each time...we should strive to make our lives the same.
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Jan 15th, 2008 at 03:28:05 - Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 (PS2) |
NOTE
First of all, a note by the blogger: as noted by the time I put for when I started this game, I have been playing this for a while. I think this is better for a GameLog about an RPG since 2 hours would only get you to the first real boss fight...if you played really fast and did not explore anything extra. I am relatively confident in my ability to remember my game experiences unless they were a looong time ago. Also, I do not like the play-blog-play-blog style since it ruins the immersion of an RPG for me. In light of these notes, I will split my entries based on memories of my initial impressions of the game (around the first ten hours - I play slowly and like to explore random stuff, sometimes not even saving if I do something I regret) and later developments while playing the game. Sorry to break convention here, but please bear with me.
SUMMARY
Persona 3 is the third game in the spin-off series of Shin Megami Tensei; there are no relations (aside from references/common elements) to other games, and it is thus stand-alone like Final Fantasies. You play a character whom you name and select responses for, a silent-hero who is supposed to be you. You (the character) live in a world much like ours and you have just moved to a small island in Japan somewhere to attend the school there. You experience the Dark Hour, a hidden hour between days when most people are "transmorgrified" into eerie coffins and all physical activity stops. Little do you know, the secluded dorm you transferred to holds a few others who also are awake during the Dark Hour. Soon, your "potential" to summon a persona, a sort of manifestation of your phyche, to fight strange shadow creatures that prey on non-persona defended people who sometimes experience the Dark Hour, is forced to awaken. You are then drafted into the "squad" at the dorm composed of persona-users who are trying to fight the shadows and find the reason behind the Dark Hour in an effort to stop it.
GAMEPLAY
The first thing a newcomer to the game/series (this was my first game in the series) will notice is the game's...well, style, even just from the opening intro. The music is much more modern and (J)pop-like than most RPGs and many tracks even have indistinct vocals in the background. Normally, this would bother me, but for this game it just fits the modern setting well and in the end I actually started humming some of the catchier tunes, wacko vocals and all. The graphics are also similar: aside from the nice character portrait art I love in most RPGs, the graphics seem low-tech and cartoony at first. However, you soon grow to love the style, and the graphics and music give the game even more character.
Next, I'll devote an entire paragraph to the "controversial" imagery one can catch easily even in the opening. To summon their persona, each character must point a special gun-shaped device called an "Evoker" at their head and fire it to "bring out" the persona psyche. In short, every time a character uses their persona, it looks like they're blowing their brains out/committing suicide etc. This may be a little shocking or seem unnecessarily disturbing at first. However, one gets strangely used to it after a short while (at least I did). Whether or not it is a good thing to get used to such imagery is a discussion for another time. One can criticize the element as possibly unnecessary since no better explanation than what I just gave you seems to be given. However, one cannot criticize the game for not having deep themes on death and the fulfillment in living everyday life. The imagery does not indicate a lack of weight on death in the game; in fact, quite the opposite.
Like most RPGs, Persona 3 starts out slow - but it also has the great rewards of patience that good RPGs have. I initially felt a little disappointed in the lack of development in the main character, but then again it is supposed to be you - your backstory, your personality. The response options are better than many games, it's just at the beginning there are many questions any normal person would ask that you can't. However, soon many of these are answered and the other characters begin to develop. The story ramps up quite quickly after the tutorials and soon you'll be looking forward to the next full-moon night, when special shadows (aka. bosses) appear outside the main tower full of shadows (called Tartarus) and wreak havoc.
Unfortunately, the gameplay ramps up slower overall and the story will be what keeps you going for a little while. Your days, across a full calendar system, are split into the school-life of classes and friends and the optional excursions into the shadow-filled tower of Tartarus (which your school transforms into) during the Dark Hour. Various activities during the day build up stats that you're not quite sure are for what until you see certain levels are needed in them for some social interactions with NPCs or help in exams. It is at first hard to split up time for such stat raising and the "Social Links" with certain NPCs which become surprisingly important later. In Tartarus, the turn-based battle system has some simple, but important strategies that are introduced early. Despite inevitable repetition, the battles are usually fast and fun; your allies are AI controlled with limited commands/AI patterns you can select. However, early on your allies get tired quickly and have to leave the tower, this "battle limit" grows rapidly with increasing levels luckily. The randomly-generated levels in the tower are hit-or-miss affairs, but overall they are not the main draw and serve their purpose of providing loot and enemies just fine. At the beginning, you just don't have enough resources to start creating new personas for your main character (who is special in the ability to wield multiple personas - the reason for your quick promotion to leader of the battle team). However, new possibilities and sidequests open up after the first real full-moon night battle...
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Jan 15th, 2008 at 01:20:59 - Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 (PS2) |
Okay, I really hate this site now, my entire freaking gamelog entry got somehow deleted. It was supposed to be this post, but I had to re-log in and then my post was empty....ARRRGGGH! So now, I learned a lesson in saving somewhere else (again) and honestly beg any grader actually grading this at midnight to return to mine later...I promise to try and re-type the whole thing as close to the original as possible...after I vent my anger on my pillow a bit.
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Jan 15th, 2008 at 01:29:16.
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