Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=682https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3219GAMEPLAY (2) So, after some serious story developments happen (I hate spoilers and am annoyed by those who don't warn you about them, so no way I'm ever going to put spoilers in my GameLogs, especially those that some people HAVE to read...if you play(ed) the game, you'll know what I mean), the game begins to open up slowly in terms of gameplay; meanwhile, the story begins to slow down a bit (or at least you have more stuff you can do in-between). Some people call this "getting over the hump" of this game into the actual gameplay. Of course, as previously mentioned, I enjoy the story and characters immensely as well as the gameplay, so for me it was more like a smooth, fun, and thrilling dive into the world of the game. Anyways, the story and character development continue well as the game progresses, even though it slows down. Also, more story-central characters are introduced and the player can begin recruiting the optional Stars of Destiny; this causes the character development to be spread around more, and thus thinner as well. The main characters and other main-story involved Stars of Destiny (which are usually automatically recruited) usually get more development and depth than the optional Stars of Destiny (SoD from now on); the optional SoD usually only get developed during their recruitment sequence/events and are more cliched, some are even joke-like comic reliefs or have exaggerated personalities, etc. I don't really expect a game to tackle the stupendous feat of developing 108 characters all very well, and Suikoden games have always focused on a group of SoD involved in the main story more. It is enough for me that the main group of characters continue developing and maintain my interest/like for them. In the meantime, in addition to the sidequesty-like tasks one can do to recruit optional SoD, many other gameplay options open up with the acquiring/evolution of your base (a Suikoden staple). More characters and Rune options make battles more interesting overall, but they remain relatively simple, short, and easy affairs. Duals and army battles change it up a bit sometimes too. This is all better for expanded discussion in... DESIGN First of all, the battle systems in most Suikodens have been relatively simple compared to most RPGs. Suikoden V's is completely turn based, with speed affecting only the order allies and enemies act each turn (which is still important to think about of course) and you select all team members actions for the overall larger "turn" at once. Also, if your battle members have anywhere near the proper level of equipment, battles are usually very easy; bosses are usually the only fights you'll ever feel any pressure on your survival, there are exceptions for rare monsters/places you can sometimes reach where you aren't supposed to be yet. Special character combination attacks, thinking of/forming awesome rune combinations, and (new to Suikoden V) choosing formations/using formation skills all add some fun and spice into combat, but are also strictly unnecessary for victory. Tied to this is the leveling system in most Suikodens, which vastly changes the amount of experience a character receives from a defeated enemy based in the difference between the character's level and the enemy's level. No, we're not talking about a little boosted experience for lower leveled party members here, and allowing experience point scaling to take care of the rest; we're talking about characters say, 20 levels behind, gaining around 5 levels in one battle. This is actually a great way to encourage players to try out new characters in battle, since it might otherwise be daunting to pick five or so characters (even worse, in Suikoden IV it was only three) other than the hero to devote time to leveling up - out of usually more than half of the 108 SoD which you can choose from to use in battle. However, it does make leveling up to a competitive strength trivial, and powerleveling is almost impossible since characters around 5 or so levels above the enemies start gaining tiny amounts of experience. I believe Suikoden V added skills to reward more dedicated fighting, but these overall have varying usefulness, and some require way too much work for a small gain. These skills are also the only real way players can play around with characters beyond upgrading their equipment and changing their runes. Once again, this is likely because of the size of the cast, and thus the player should simply "choose" the right characters for their battle needs rather than "making" the right character. Some skills are also neat in that they are active even when the character is in your "entourage" (basically your reserves you can carry around), some non-battle characters can also be put in your entourage only for their skills. Different players will react differently to the overall scheme, but overall Suikodens have never been about tough/challenging battles or grinding, but more about... Ally collecting. As mentioned previously, many of the 108 SoD play a role in the plot, and optional ones may be recruited with certain requirements. As with all Suikodens, the larger incentive to collect SoD other than learning side-stories and expanding your options/base, is to affect the ending. With only a few more SoD than the amount given to you automatically by the plot (usually quite a few actually out of the 108 are mandatory), the player will get the "sort-of bad" ending. Have a healthy amount of optional SoD, and you get the "normal" ending. A perfect set of 108 Stars will net you the "best" ending. (Interestingly, some players prefer the "normal" endings since the "best" endings are "too happy/perfect" and the "normal" endings are more sad and realistic). A few "bad" endings can also be gotten that end the game prematurely by selecting certain choices or losing certain duals etc. It is also sometimes annoyingly hard to not miss some optional SoD due to short recruitment windows/hard requirements/whatever. One's best bet is to scour every corner of the world you can reach after every main story event...also, look for characters with names/character portraits...and be nice to them/try to do whatever for them. Another aspect all Suikodens have had is "the base". Hey, with 108 Stars, you gotta have somewhere to put them. This has been around since Suikoden I, and some other games have done the "base" idea well, like Skies of Arcadia, but Suikoden was one of the first games, if not the first game, to have the idea of a player having their own base that evolved with recruiting new allies. This adds another reason to get new SoD to improve and fill up your base. Also, after it starts getting filled and cozy, it really gives a wonderful sense of "home" in a game, which many RPGs do not have (some other games are built around this idea of course). I mean, a lot of RPGs have the "airship" or whatnot, but those don't boast 108 possible residents or have beds, baths, a library, a vegetable garden, shops, a restaurant, your own room you can decorate, a teleporter mirror complete with cute, spacy teleportress, a half-crazy guy who will play checkers with you, etc. Granted, all of these have limited interaction here, but the point is it feels like HOME. You want to recruit that chef because you know it'll be awesome to have a restaurant inside your base; also, you want to get seeds for the guy taking care of your vegetable garden, so the chef can use the vegetables you grow for new dishes etc. It opens up a lot of side stuff to do/gives you reason to do side stuff like scouring shops for new seeds. Also, what better to do after a tiring day of battling than to go play some Blind Man's Bluff, take a hot bath, and go to sleep in your room? To wrap up some stuff here, a nitpick would be the game has strange instances of user unfriendliness, more likely just programming oversights, such as the cursor defaulting to "New Game" every time you boot up the game, even if you a memory card with save data inserted. On the other hand, options like the "auto-battle" command make up for it in increasing user friendliness. Also, I won't go over these in detail, but the duals (which are similar in most Suikodens) and army battles (which are completely different in most Suikodens) add nice changes of pace from normal battles, but have their own quirks. Getting more allies also helps for having more options in army/war battles. Anyway, Suikoden V's strengths lie in its Story and Characters, as well as its ally collecting and base development aspects...not in its battle or character growth systems, which are the core of gameplay in most RPGs. If one can take this change of pace, they may yet find the beauty of the Water Margin.Sat, 08 Mar 2008 06:36:47 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3219&iddiary=6058https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3219NOTE Since we got to choose the game for our final Gamelog instead of it being another "classics list" assignment (I believe this was changed sometime in the middle of the quarter), I'll give my usual RPG schpeel: As with my other RPG logs, I started this game around the vague vicinity of the indicated date and I am still in the middle of it. I developed a bad habit of not finishing my current RPG before I started another one in the last few years, and now I'm trying to finish them all... Again, I am sure of my ability to remember my impressions and experiences from even the beginning of the game, since I am still in the middle of it. I will once again split my entries based on memories of my initial impressions of the game and then later developments while playing the game. Also, sorry Odin Sphere...you were my runner-up. SUMMARY Suikoden V is the fifth game in the main line of Suikoden turn-based, console RPGs. Once again, it takes place in the same huge "world" of Suikoden, but separated by large amounts of time/distance from the other entries; as such, like the other Suikoden games, it is fine to play it stand-alone, but there are tiny connections to/recurring elements and characters from other games in the series for fans. As always, the story centers around one of the True Runes and the 108 Stars of Destiny involved in its story. Overall, Suikoden V is a return to Suikoden's old roots in Suikoden I and II, after the interesting experiments in Suikoden III and the arguable low-point in the main series, Suikoden IV. GAMEPLAY A nice boot-up video once again for this Suikoden game (gosh darn it, why don't we get the Suikogaidens over here?)... One will soon notice upon starting a new game that the graphics are not exactly top-notch; however, they have a nice style and the characters are very expressive in the anime-style way. Also, I was ecstatic that the silent hero this time actually has facial expressions! The silent hero convention (aka. the main character whose supposed to be you and thus says nothing except for the conversation choices you pick) works fine for me when it's done well, but I hated how in Suikoden IV the protagonist had the same poker face on all the time regardless of whether or not you had just selected "I love you to death and want to hug you every time I see you!" or "I absolutely hate you and want to stab you in the face!". Obviously that's a made-up example, but it's much more satisfying to have a main player avatar that actually looks like they're expressing your choices/reacting naturally to a situation rather than looking like a robot all the time... Anyways, I'm getting off track here, so as for how the game starts off, it is very story driven at the beginning. Thanks to having an unstoppable level 20 party member for most of the game's start, battles go by even quicker and easier than usual. You are quickly thrust into a situation that shows the devastating power of the Sun Rune; and then learn of its connection to the ruling family and you, the hero, as the prince of that family. However, the viewpoint is instead an uncommon sidelines sort of view, since the kingdom of Falena has a matriarchy-like system...very interesting choice, and well done, by the designers. I usually do not dive into story and character development until later (2nd entry), but I have to for Suikoden V since that is practically the main component of the entire game beginning. Thanks to this, the story and character development ramp up very fast at the start (especially compared to most RPGs), and there are only small segments of easy battles and limited exploring interspersed in-between. I could see some people disliking this constant stream of story at the beginning, a-la Xenosaga style with less impressive cutscenes. I, however, loved this relaxed entry into a game that also immediately began to cause me to form attachments to the world and characters. For that matter, Suikoden V has the character development style I love, especially at the beginning. That is, you don't just see characters develop in crucial story moments and some text inside towns, but also see a bit of them in their everyday life and situation (usually tied more loosely to the actual story arc). This, for some reason, gives a more realistic and "warm" feel for characters. It annoyed me that Xenosaga: Episode 1 was criticized for what little it had of this, and thus there was even less in later episodes of such scenes...a little tangent rant there. The characters do have their cliches, but their development is so plentiful at the beginning that they quickly cease to be confined by these stereotypes and begin to gain depth right at the start of the game. The character development is not only helped by the well-done character animations and facial expressions, but also by the superb voice acting. As rarely happens for some games, I held back my hope at the beginning that such a low-budget game could have such great voice acting; but as the excellence continued, I was once again amazed at the English voice acting that was on par with games like Xenosaga and FF XII. I hereby give mad props to the English voice actors and the localization team that helped them for Suikoden V. Some of the voices suit the characters arguably better than the Japanese voices; luckily, since there is no Japanese voice option (I heard the Japanese voices from some vids). Thanks to all this, I got involved in the story and grew quite attached to many characters very quickly; if this kind of opening turns some players away, so be it. The start of Suikoden V remains one of the best parts of the game for me, and possibly one of my favorite experiences overall in my life of RPG gaming so far. There is not much else to do at the start of the game, but you don't need anything else.Sat, 08 Mar 2008 03:13:23 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3219&iddiary=6057https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2918GAMEPLAY (2) Being the type of game it is, my opinion of Wii Sports did not change much upon a few more sessions with it. Once again, playing for a short while with others was fun, but not exactly memorable. As a single player experience, it certainly did not hold my attention for long. However, a more recent experience with it made me give it some more value. This happened to be the first time I was in the position of the introducer (for this game). The roles of the first time I played Wii Sports were reversed, only this time the other person was my oldest sister - who primarily only plays games in the vein of Tetris and Spider Solitaire. She was quite reluctant to try out Wii Sports; after all, the time when I convinced her to play Myst, a game I thought she might like, did not turn out exactly well...though it was quite interesting and amusing, but that's another story for another time. So after much convincing that it would be fun and easy to get into, we decided to try, of course, Wii-tennis - since it was, again, the easiest to get into. Although my crazy situation was much less likely to happen with my oldest sister, I promptly informed her about the almighty importance of timing, and timing only in the game as soon as I noticed her having difficulties. I'm still not sure if she assumed some of the same stuff as me or if she was just getting used to the timing, but informing her about it quickly certainly helped. Also, the replays were surprisingly useful in telling her stuff like "You swung too soon there, see?" or "Swing just a little bit before that." etc. She soon got the hang of it. Interestingly, the only part of the Wii-tennis that had come to me naturally the first time I played, the serving, gave my oldest sister more trouble since it was more complex. I was so used to this part of the game, and it had come to me so much easier since it was the only part that felt more like actual tennis to me, that it was a change of perspective to see my sister having the opposite reaction to it. Granted, that was because she thought underhanded serves could be done, and while explaining and watching her, I had the strange experience of consciously realizing that any two consecutive swings (properly timed of course) of the Wii-mote would work as a serve; I say "consciously" because unconsciously I already knew this must be the case, since the Wii-tennis game did not take into account swing direction in any other case. I had always used the actual overhand swing motion (up-down, much like the one done by the player's Mii) since it was natural to me; it was only now I realized the first swing sent up the ball, and the second swing, well, swung. It was funky watching my sister successfully serving with a left-right motion or, even weirder, a down-up motion. In the end, it was fun and great to be having a close Wii-tennis match with my oldest sister after she quickly learned how to play the game. Also, she found the cartoony graphics and replays of screw-ups hilarious, and it rubbed off on me since I had always thought they were funny too. We had quite a few matches, full of cracking up at our Mii's crazy screwed-up dives and swings, as well as the always bouncing, cheering crowd which seemed happy regardless of if a ball had just hit them in the face. She was reluctant to try out another "sport" and we had limited time anyway, so we just continued playing and laughing through tennis matches... DESIGN As my experiences highlight, the core of Wii-Sports' design, as well as its main strength and weakness, is its accessibility and simplicity. It easy to get anyone into the games, especially the simpler ones, and have a good time. On the other hand, the lack of depth does not make it good for extended play. In other words it has a lot of the first seduction (especially because of it being packaged with the Wii, it is automatically gotten and almost "bypasses", in a loophole fashion, having to get the player to have enough interest in the game to buy it.), but not enough of the second seduction. This is also because the single player options are meager even for a game made for multi-player (such as fighting games, racers, or party games). Game genres like these are simply better suited for multi-player, but often can cover there bases pretty well with good single player modes or options. Some games even have such-well designed single player modes that the single-player experience can arguably exceed the multi-player experience (I'm told Soul Caliber III does just that). This game only attempts that with (at least I'm told) an increasing AI difficulty to match your Mii's "skill" level. Also, another part of some multi-player games is the semi-concealed depth some of them offer, a sort of emergent complexity that comes from becoming more experienced with the game. This is present in many fighters of course, including the Super Smash Brothers series of fighter/party game hybrids, and some racers as well, Mario Kart series included. Nintendo has proven it can do this with those two series, but perhaps it was more difficult to get that into this sort of game, because it seems to be lacking that depth as far as I can tell. To end this not sounding like I hate the game, I'll just say again that the game is great to get into and get others into for a short, fun romp. The graphics may not be great, but at least they're cartoony and funny. Also, the Wii-mote is certainly great to play with; although other Wii-games may do it just as well (or possibly better), this is as good a game as any to introduce someone to the Wii "experience". Although some of the games (*cough*...tennis...*cough*) may not simulate the actual sport very well, they are still fun to play with the Wii-mote, while others actually sort-of feel like the real activity (like bowling). Anyways, I don't want the line to blur too much between the Wii console's strengths and this game's actual strengths. In summary, play this in short bursts with friends or newcomers to games/the Wii/whatever.Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:49:31 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2918&iddiary=5508https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2918NOTE I first experienced this game a while ago, around the indicated start time. I have only played it occasionally in various situations since then. I will document my two most important sessions with the game in terms of how they affected my opinion of the game. SUMMARY Wii Sports is the game that originally came packaged with new Wii consoles (actually I have no idea if this is still the case - it may very well be), and thus is likely the most widespread Wii game out there. The game allows multiple players to play video-game versions of tennis, baseball, bowling, golf, and boxing using the spiffy motion-sensing capabilities of the Wii-mote. This game might as well be a tech-demo for the Wii-mote, but at least it's a fun, cartoony, and user-friendly way to learn about the Wii's motion-sensing gameplay, which separates it from the other next-gen (really by now they're current-gen) consoles out there. GAMEPLAY Luckily, the first time I played Wii Sports was with my middle sister; I say this because I personally think this game is only truly fun with others. She had also played it before, and thus could guide me into it...At least that's what I would say for most games (I guide her into RPGs sometimes), but Wii Sports hardly needs an introduction, its beauty is in its pick-up-and-play accessibility; however, my sister certainly helped in correcting some false assumptions I had at first... She suggested we try tennis first since it was easy to get into and fun. Ironically (and hilariously), I was initially confused as I tried to figure out the "intricacies" of the gameplay, as was habit from playing games like RPGs all the time. I grew baffled and frustrated as I did horribly in the game: Wait, so I can't move from left to right? How do you control both team members? Why does the guy in front dive for it stupidly when I want the guy in the back to go up and make a nice, easy swing? How come when I swing faster and harder the ball doesn't travel faster? Wait, I'm doing a backhand swing - shouldn't that make it go right - and not left to out of bounds? Okay, the ball is right above me, I should slam it down towards the other side - no, don't hit it to the right, where the out of bounds line is two feet away! Man, do I suck at this game or what? My sister, noticing my troubled look and poor performance, questioned me; I of course answered with a few of the thoughts going through my head... She gave me a wonderfully funny look, laughed a little, and informed me that the only thing that mattered was the timing of the swing. *Insert awkward enlightened silence* "Oh...", I said as I laughed at myself a little. After a few explanations on how timing affected everything, I got into the "groove" of the game and it was fun having a heated "match" with my sister. Perhaps worried after the previous escapade that the simplicity of Wii-tennis would get to me, my sister soon suggested we move to bowling, which was a little more complex. Overall, I felt it simulated bowling itself better - taking in right or left standing position, ball release time, and throw direction to the right or left. Although it was less fast paced than tennis, getting a strike felt far more rewarding than say, getting the almost-random steaming fast ball effect in tennis, because it felt like it one had better control over it. In the end, it was not as fast and funny as tennis, but was closer to the actual, relaxed feeling of bowling...which was nice. Lastly, my first play of Wii Sports ended with boxing, which my sister said I should play against the AI since it was more fun (since it was less likely to take forever). It had a few complex controls that were not entirely as intuitive as the bowling. In the end, I found my sister's suggestion of being ultra-aggressive to be the most effective. Swinging in different ways and patterns of hooks, uppercuts, etc. seemed to be more effective; but although it was nice the game seemed to detect these differences, it also seemed a little random. It was certainly the most tiring of the three I tried that day, and left me with a strange mixed feeling of fun, yet doubt of what was really going on in the game. Overall, my first session of Wii Sports was fun, but completely forgettable as well, if it weren't for the funny misconceptions I had about Wii-tennis.Thu, 21 Feb 2008 16:48:44 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2918&iddiary=5505https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2444GAMEPLAY (2) Since I always start off this section with Story/Character Development, I'll just do it again...SO3's story is generally quite good, but not really stellar or anything in RPG terms. At the beginning of the second disc (yes, there are two DVDs for this game, not dual-layered though) there is a story "twist" which many people seem to dislike...however, it made me think about game worlds in general more, so I thought it was quite fine. The story varies in slow and fast sections, but generally keeps you well interested enough. Fortunately, it is not the only part of the game that keeps you into it. The character development is just a small notch above the story. Although most of the characters are a bit stereotypical, they do each develop and gain there own charm and depth. Also, the English voice acting is good enough to help bring out the characters, and the character's mannerisms and motions are well animated. Also, you have to choose 2 out of 4 optional characters at some point, yet all four (despite being optional) are well developed and you wish you could take them all. Private actions (which I will discuss in design) also help develop individual characters in situations outside of the main storyline. Now, all that isn't even like a fourth of what the game really has to offer...Although much of the rest opens up a good way into the game (kind of a shame), if you like the game enough to get that far, you have a bundle of great side-stuff to start doing soon, and continuing with the story only opens up more options. First comes Item Creation (once again, more in design) and more freedom in exploring, complete with optional dungeons and hard areas you aren't supposed to be in yet (but can brave for fun, curiosity, loot, challenging fights for lots of experience etc.). Quite a bit later you reach the "city of mini-games" as I like to call it (I believe there is one in every Star Ocean...at least the one in SO2 was called "Fun City"- so appropriate) which is not as expansive in variety as the one in SO2 (aka. Star Ocean: The Second Story), but is still a giant ball of side-stuff to do. Then, much later, like after you "beat" the game aka. finish the story, there are more crazy hard optional dungeons to do after that. Let's not get into the other difficulty levels and replays for different optional characters even, you probably could play this game until the end of time, but one full play-through doing everything you want to do will probably be more than enough (that's what I'm trying to finish doing in the future anyway). So, let's move on to... DESIGN First of all has to be Item Creation; this is a hallmark of the Star Ocean series and one of its best and most innovative strengths (even today, long after the first Star Ocean, its systems stand unique and well-polished in the crowd). SO3's Item Creation (IC) system is very different from SO2's however. Although it seems a little harder to grasp since for most types of IC you only select the price instead of materials like in SO2, prices do (usually) uniquely correspond to one item and writing these down allows you to control what you make to the same extent as in SO2. I will leave the details for the game to explain, but I wish to point out the many new awesome additions to IC that SO3 added to make up for its increased learning curve/difficulty to grasp. First of all, although SO3 has lost the amazing skill/talent system in SO2, there is newfound fun in recruiting NPC inventors and competing with ones you haven't recruited to "patent" creations. Also, it is super-neat that items invented show up in shops for sale after a while, and will run out until someone makes more on the "market". It is great that you begin receiving "royalties" for items you have patented on the market at regular intervals outside of town as well (so you can't run around town forever getting money), but also there is the tension that an unrecruited inventor will patent a good item before you (you want to patent good items since you get discounts buying them from shops as well as the "royalties") outside of town. This item creation "race" creates even more incentive to work hard on item creation. Plus, recruiting NPC creators through different ways is always satisfying as you work toward your imminent monopoly...bwahaha! Also, one can spend hours and hours fiddling with the "factors" on their weapons (like randomly shooting fireballs, or automatic MP recovery) to create specialized weapons for whatever purpose. The only reason I can think of that this was not also allowed for armor and accessories also is because it would be way too powerful with even more than 8 slots of factors to customize (and you can put defensive factors on your weapon as well, anything on an accessory or armor you can also put on your weapon, so the thing is to put factors you do not already have on your best armor/accessory or factors that work well with the ones on your other equipment). The sheer amount and types of items you can create is great as always, Star Ocean has always had the most variety and number of items in any RPG series I've played. Although some of the more fun types/items from SO2 are missing (like "forged contract" and "bounced check"), SO3 makes up for it in a better designed item list/sorting system, which is very important for a game with so many possible items...the system in SO2 could get annoying at times. That all said, the game's difficulty starts increasing near the end of disc 1 and onto disc 2, and although you can always get by with store bought items, the game kind of pushes you to do some IC...but then again it's so great once you get into it, so whatever. Next, I have always wanted to rant about battle trophies...Why? Cause SO3 had them before Xbox Live Achievements, AND they are better. Why are they better? Cause getting lots of them actually does something other than boosting a semi-meaningless gamer score (due to vast disparities in how difficult it is to get points in different Xbox games). Getting lots of battle trophies unlocks new character costumes, new difficulty levels (unfortunately you have to start a new game for these, presumably so you can't get lots of levels on Earth(Easy) mode and then switch to 4D(Super-Hard) mode to make 4D mode easier), and best of all(IMO) a sound test mode! (I love most of the music in the game, though what was Sakuraba thinking with that one rap-like boss track, didn't fit at all and made me lose a little faith in him...). There are 300 trophies of all sorts: some will happen automatically with continued play like "Kill 100 types of enemies", others require skill/preparation like "Defeat X boss in under 1 minute" or "Defeat X boss without taking damage" (this only applies to the character you are controlling, since you usually can't help it if AI controlled members take damage), others really require skill/preparation like "get a 500 hit combo", and some (my least favorite) just require persistence, luck, or single-sighted pursuit of that goal like "Kill X super-hard optional boss in 4D difficulty with only Charge" or "deal exactly 777 damage" or "Kill X boss at level 1"(the worst...sort of). But either way, most nice stuff can be unlocked with the easier trophies, and the harder ones are more just for the proof of that accomplishment. These add great side-goals to pursue for dedicated players while rewarding them with actual stuff. The trophies viewer even has a (bad) snapshot of the moment the trophy was gotten and its description. This is just another way this game was innovative for its time and it is way better than the sound clip collection system in SO2, which was based on luck way too much. Alright, now we get to private actions, which deserve praise and criticism. Unlike in SO2, where you could decide to initiate private actions outside a town (which means your party members split up an do their own thing inside a town - hence the name), in SO3 they happen automatically. Also, unlike in SO2, you cannot pair up any two characters in the ending, you only affect your own pairing...then again, this was hard to do in SO2 anyway. Anyway, the prevailing problem of these gets a little worse in SO3. This problem is the extreme difficulty in knowing what each response/event will do to each character's opinion of you or your opinion of them. Even weirder in SO3 is that many more PAs affect characters not even involved in the scene, almost as though your responses form what kind of person you are, and other characters judge based on that; this does however, prevent the player from being a hypocrite to get the best opinion from every character...a good moral lesson I guess. Also in SO3, mistakes cannot be fixed by fighting many battles together, PAs are the only factors in determining relationships...also more unforgiving. Also, some PAs are hard to avoid/easy to miss or do not have a part where you choose a response, so you may not think it is a PA, yet still affect relationships just by seeing them. Others are just an exchange of text; one rule that is generally true is: if Fayt(who you control in town) talks outside of a story cutscene, it is probably a private action. Overall, a summary is that the player does not have enough control over the ending pairing since it takes a lot of work to figure out what is going on at all...that said, PAs are excellent in terms of providing character development that is specialized and outside the story. Next, the Dictionary deserves a small mention, although it is not as good as say, the databases in Xenosaga Episode I or III. It is simply good for a game to have a separate information source that fleshes out the world and chronicles terms, people, and places in the world that may or may not be a major part of the main story. It allows the rich vision of the writers/creators/developers, which may not have been completely expressed in the final product, to be brought out somewhere. It makes a great spare time read, and there are some entries that you can miss getting in this game, so thoroughness in finding everything in the game gives you more about the game! I just always love little extras like these... Last, but not least, the battle system itself deserves special mention for being fast, fun, and frenetic, yet still requiring skill and strategy - an ideal goal for an action RPG. Core to this is the HP, MP, and Fury (Guts in the JP Version...hehe, this is Star Ocean classic) consumption systems. The details are for the game to explain, but simply summarized, there is always a trade-off between safety and damage capability. Any offensive action (such as normal attacks) or movement uses fury, and you lose your 100% fury shield that protects against weak attacks; if you run out of fury, you need to stand still to recover - this prevents mashing and encourages balancing offense and defense. Battle Skills use HP and Magic uses MP, both are more effective than normal attacks most of the time, but run out of either HP or MP and you are knocked out. Many people disliked this 0 MP=knockout, but it makes sense: if you're extremely fatigued physically or mentally, you are likely to lose consciousness. Also, with an "MP Damage" system, there are now two ways to kill your enemies as well as two ways you need to protect yourself - it actually makes mages hardier in some ways and allows you to target an enemy's weak point of the two. There is also the Rock-Paper-Scissors-like relationship between weak attacks, strong attacks, and the fury shield combined with sidesteps and running to dodge. Plus, there is chaining battle skills/magic (for dedicated mage characters) which allows damage bonuses (this is central for doing high-damage)...well, you can imagine the results of all these aspects combined. The magic in SO3 was finally balanced well after being too strong in SO1 (from what I heard) and too weak in SO2 (Although is still a little weaker in SO3 than battle skills, but dedicated mages can use it to good effect). Another thing is the fact that you can control any character in battle and each character has very different capabilities...in normal attacks, battle skills, magic, stats, even basic stuff like running speed, sidestep speed/distance, speed of item use, and knockdown recovery time. Each character has a very different feel and set of strategies/strengths/weaknesses on the battlefield, and if you get bored of one character, I highly suggest you try mastering another - it's harder, and more fun, than you think. Anyway, sorry that was so long. This game just had so many Design qualities I wanted to talk about - that was probably the main focus of this entire game log. Anyway, with so many interesting design qualities, I demand this game by put on the classics list...NAO!...J/K.Sat, 09 Feb 2008 02:37:17 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2444&iddiary=4866https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2444NOTE Again,(the last time, I promise!...I think) a note by the blogger: It seems like I'm going back in time with each Gamelog I've done; in a way, I am, but other games are also in-between >_>. As with my other RPG logs, I have been playing this for a while and am still playing it. Also, the starting date for this game is probably way off...I am pretty sure I started a good while before my estimate. I developed a bad habit of not finishing my current RPG before I started another one in the last few years, and now I'm trying to finish them all...Anyway, I've gotten further in this than FF XII and definitely want to "finish" it (since I'm not sure you can define "finish" for this game sometimes-hehe, the name fits). Again, I am sure of my ability to remember my impressions and experiences from even the beginning of the game, since I am still in the middle of it. I will once again split my entries based on memories of my initial impressions of the game and then later developments while playing the game. SUMMARY Star Ocean: Till the End of Time is the third in the main Star Ocean line of action RPGs created by tri-Ace (it is often abbreviated as SO3, SO:TtEoT, or SO3:TTEOT, etc. I will call it SO3 from now on, since that it the shortest). Like some other RPG series, it is set in the same universe as the other Star Oceans, but far enough removed that you can easily play it alone and only miss some references/similarities to the other games. You play Fayt, a seemingly normal human living in the futuristic, sci-fi universe of the game; he is simply vacationing on a resort planet with his parents and childhood friend Sophia. Of course, something like a hostile alien race has to attack and change the course of his life...maybe not for the better, but for the more exciting at least. GAMEPLAY The game boot-up sequence for this game is one of my favorites, and arguably more inspiring than say, the FF XII's opening even. Sakuraba's "The Dawn of Wisdom" is such an appropriate track for it too, in melody and name. Too bad the actual game doesn't start in as glorious a fashion as FF XII. SO3 starts off fairly slow, even for an RPG, but at least the ramp-up pace never drops like in FF XII (Okay, enough comparing now, I know - Sorry, FF XII was the last Gamelog I wrote). One good aspect about the lead-in to the game is the ability to skip all the battle tutorials; of course, I do not recommend this unless you have played before/read the manual thoroughly since it is very important to get down the basics of the fast battle system. Also, make sure you make a Battle Trophies file or import your previous game's in the Battle Tutorial area: this is your only chance to do so (Battle Trophies explained in design later). Most other tutorials are also skip-able, and you can also mess around with options in the config. menu, including one to skip cutscenes (For replays or game overs maybe). A small bit of user friendly design here... Anyways, after a bit of just moving and talking (during which you experience the game's new automatic Private Action system - just Star Ocean's fancy term for interactions with other main characters, ones with response choices...WARNING! these affect the ending, more in design), stuff happens and you are thrust into your dangerous adventure. Despite the awesome sci-fi opening sequence, much of this game takes place in a more fantasy-like setting in true Star Ocean style. Even for me, who expected this from a Star Ocean game, this was a little disappointing after the opening scene completely wowed me. Either way, as long as you like fantasy as well, this game makes up for it more than enough ways. Near the beginning, you are quite limited and can pretty much only continue with the story. However, the story is pretty interesting and the sheer fun of getting into the battle system and learning new battle skills to experiment with/practice with makes it easy to continue on. After you get more than one party member, not only does this open up more character interaction/development, but combat becomes even more fun since you can switch the character you're manually controlling with the press of a button. At other times, members you're not controlling are handled by AI. Now, the AI in this game in funky - first of all you can "level" it up with skill points by upping the "Attack" and "Defense" levels out of your four "status" skills, this does seem to increase the AI's smarts, but also affects how aggressive/defensive it is based on the balance of the two. Also, there are AI patterns you can set for each ally and you can set which spells the AI is allowed to cast in battle (all spells will still be available in manual control, and battle skills are always limited by slots and CP regardless). Lastly, just from my experience, whenever you change an ally's battle skill set, it is best to control them manually and use the skills as you want the AI to use them...and the AI seems to pick up your preferences a bit somehow...very cool. The only small side jobs you can do near the beginning are completing maps (some have areas you can't reach, so if you're stuck on a percentage less than 97%, it probably isn't doable then); if you explore/see 99% of a map (luckily the game isn't anal enough to make it 100%) you get random bunny statues that you can sell after the first (it is good to keep one for the bonus it gives) for large chunks of cash, which is hard to come by early in the game. Other than that, the story, battles, and playing around with new characters are likely to keep you going until you reach the parts where the game starts really opening up...Fri, 08 Feb 2008 22:55:50 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2444&iddiary=4698https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2293GAMEPLAY (2) So, once again starting with the story and characters, the story moves along very nicely and keeps you quite thirsty for more for a good while. This nice pacing and development continues until around the point where you have gotten all your party members permanently...at which time the pace of the story begins to slow exceptionally. This occurs through longer required trekking/battling/exploring segments before the next story development, combined with shorter/less actual events or developments upon reaching the next destination/objective. The same occurs with the characters, they are each introduced well and given interesting stories and personalities - heightened by the exceptional English voice acting (unfortunately rare, though improving these days) and well-animated movements and mannerisms. Unfortunately, the lack of conversation or interaction with them outside of cutscenes/events begins to hurt their overall memorability a little. Some people may like this lack of text, but it could at least have the optional conversations in town more often. I am still debating to myself whether it would have been better or not to have talk in battles as well. Overall, the slowdown in character and story development in this game, which is completely opposite to the usual increase in most traditional RPGs as one progresses, is what led to my hiatus from the game when something else grabbed my attention. I still want to know what happens at least (meaning the story is still good), it just takes too long to reach the next tidbit. Luckily, there are other things that keep you interested, if in a different way. Although it means even more time spent before the next story scene (I might forget what's going on here sometimes), one can begin spending lots of time taking on new hunts, exploring optional areas in the ever-widening world, leveling, finding rare items or enemies, customizing their characters with the license board and gambits (both explained below) etc. The game world certainly grows richer with possibilities even as the story slows down. This leads me to the first aspect I wish to discuss in... DESIGN I think Square-Enix was trying to make a MMORPG-like experience for a single-person, console game. In this vein, I think they succeeded, especially with the gambit system, which I will discuss later. The expansive, open world full of random chests, rare monsters, and optional discoveries is well-done. Although taste has turned away some who were expecting a traditional RPG from the long line of Final Fantasies, I personally feel the game is a nice change of pace - though I don't want traditional RPGs to die out either. The only part I can criticize is the downgrade of the story pace to molasses-level MMORPG style. Especially with the well-done story objectives system on the map mentioned previously, this was completely unnecessary. You don't have to take EVERYTHING that comes with the territory; especially since it is already lacking the actual social aspect of MMORPGs, it NEEDS character interaction and story development to make up for it. Square-Enix could have taken advantage of both the strengths of the console-style RPG and the strengths of the MMORPG for this single-player RPG to make it brilliant. Instead, it only succeeded in making the MMORPG style of play work in the single-player framework. This, of course, is an accomplishment in itself however. The main component that makes the MMORPG-style play work with one player is the gambit system, which is a way to "program" your party members on how to react in battle situations. Each "gambit" consists of a condition such as [ally has less than 30% HP] and a reaction to that condition such as [Cure] or [Potion]; these combined would cause that character to cast Cure (or use a Potion) on an ally when that ally is below 30% HP. Then you prioritize which gambits are more important. For example, if you have a healing gambit above an attack enemies gambit, the member will stop fighting to heal the ally; if it's the other way around, the member will fight until all nearby enemies are killed before healing the wounded ally. People complain ridiculously about how the game "plays itself" this way. Well, first of all, who said you had to use them? You can manually input every command if you want. Second of all, you will have to change your gambits for certain enemies and bosses if you want to survive - you cannot rely on them all the time either. Lastly, it adds another aspect of the game to play around with and master; it takes some careful planning to get a great working gambit with the limited slots you have. In my opinion, the gambit system allows you to remove tedious constant commands while keeping you in control of what you want to do manually; it also gives a semi-illusion of having self-acting other party members and being able to give them suggestions over their own actions, thus making the MMORPG feeling more "correct" with a single player. Okay, I promise this will be shorter. The License Board system is a great way to customize your characters; who cares if it doesn't make sense? When have RPGs made sense? What with levels, every new town having better equipment, monsters dropping money (which this game makes more realistic with selling loot) etc. Remember FF X? With that funky grid and all the spheres? When did that make sense? This is just a new kind of not making sense, so people have to complain about it. Also, yes you can make all the characters the same combat-wise, but you don't HAVE to. People complained about the Sphere Grid being too restrictive in FF X, so Square-Enix made a more customizing friendly "expert" grid in the International Version (these are ironically only in Japan); then when the license grid is perfect for customizing in FF XII, people complain that the characters aren't different enough battle-wise, so the FF XII International Version had a more restrictive system...go figure. The point is, it is great for customizing...take it or leave it. I'll leave the details for the game to explain since my rant was too long already. Speaking of what the game explains, it does mostly everything in the in-game tutorials except Mist Quickenings...which you must look up in the manual for some reason...and even then is is confusing and takes actual practice to figure out how to do it right. However, overall I advocate reading manuals, and Quickenings aren't all too useful past getting more MP unless you get them early on. That's another nitpick...perhaps because limits and summons were so useful in previous FFs, they have been overly weakened to the point of being almost useless at the later stages of the game. This is due to Quickenings (FF XII version of limits) and summons using massive amounts of MP, which is usually better spent on healing/support since Black (damage) magic has also been weakened in general. This was also changed in the International version, this time to better effect, in my opinion, than the License Board change. To end on a good note, one can certainly see the game is very well polished. The polygons may be lower than in FF X, but the textures were given the main focus this time by Square-Enix, thus the close-up details in the world and characters are excellent. The game runs smoothly and with a great cinematic quality. Overall, despite some shortcomings, it is still a game to recommend...and worthy of being a Final Fantasy.Sun, 27 Jan 2008 03:09:01 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2293&iddiary=4397https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2293NOTE Once again, a note by the blogger: I have also been playing this game for a while, this time the starting date is more of an estimate than last time since I'm on a little hiatus from the game. I am still sure of my ability to remember the game and its world since I do intend to return to where I left off. I will once again split my entries based on memories of my initial impressions of the game and then later developments while playing the game. Also, I belatedly realized this is going to be late, but I still intend to do it. If it cannot be used for this assignment, I would ask if it could be used as the next "classics list" assignment for me, please? SUMMARY Final Fantasy XII is the latest released entry in the well-known RPG series, and is stand-alone/self-contained like most Final Fantasies. The Battles are more MMORPG style than traditional Final Fantasies (FFs from now on); the battle system is styled after the online FF XI, with many changes of course. You follow the story of many characters in the small nation of Dalmasca, which has its sad history revealed in brilliant glory in the opening moments of the game (I'm NOT going to spoil this). The story develops and changes, of course, as the cast tries to find a way to bring Dalmasca out of the oppressive grip of the Archadian empire. The game supposedly takes place in Ivalice, the same world introduced to series veterans in Final Fantasy Tactics, only many, many years apart. GAMEPLAY As previously mentioned, the opening scenes upon starting a new game are brilliant - not to mention the nice start-up sequence with the latest incarnation of the nostalgic FF theme. The recent history of Dalmasca is told in fast, almost too fast (for me), suspenseful cutscenes and you'll barely notice the tutorial in-between for sheer desire to see more. I have to say, this game had one of the best lead-in sequences in the series, if not in RPG history. Shame to say it was a little wasted... After the glorious start, you'll get to the present...where you're killing rats. I'm not kidding! Whether the contrast was intentional or not, the starting of the "real" game - with good old level one, worst equipment, etc. and more tutorials - was slower than it had to be in my opinion. The starting climb of getting money, fighting and other standard RPG events is more tedious than most, probably because you only have one party member at first. Setting the battle speed higher helps a little, but you'll probably want it back down after you start getting more members/abilities. Luckily, after some required introduction to the game world, the story gets interesting once again. Also, getting new party members and abilities quickly heightens the speed and variety of battles, lessening the starting strain of building your characters up. Stealing is also less stressful with other party members around to take damage and heal you up, which makes getting loot (which you sell as the primary means of getting money, gil as in most FFs, in this game) easier. Continuing with the story exactly when you want is easily done in FF XII thanks to your next story objective being clearly noted and marked on your detailed area map in the main menu/select button map. On that note, the game is surprisingly open from the start, even when you only have one party member. If you don't want to continue with the story, there are a few hunts (sidequest bosses basically) already open and you can travel out to many places before you're "required" to. Most people will be stopped or surprised by the fact that you can find monsters that can easily one-hit kill you right at the beginning (one is particularly infamous, but also freaking obvious in my opinion. Yes! I would advise saving before you poke a dinosaur with your dinky sword at level one! If you must satisfy your reckless curiosity, save first!). However, if you are smart/skilled/lucky enough to get around some of these, you can really get around a bit before you reach the real "you're not allowed to go here" barriers. Both these aspects are a little unexpected in traditional RPGs, but definitely more common in MMORPGs. Continuing on...Sun, 27 Jan 2008 00:52:44 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2293&iddiary=4396https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1863GAMEPLAY(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.Tue, 15 Jan 2008 05:22:36 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1863&iddiary=3810https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1863NOTE 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...Tue, 15 Jan 2008 03:28:05 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1863&iddiary=3794