Limit Break: Why Splitting the Final Fantasy VII Remake into Multiple Parts May Be a Good Thing

The initial reveal of the Final Fantasy VII remake was met with seemingly unanimous applause just a few months ago. Now that details of its release format and gameplay have been revealed, it seems fans have become a bit divided over this bold reimagining. I have yet to complete the original PS1 version of Final Fantasy VII, but the good third or so of it that I have played, I very much enjoyed. I still prefer Final Fantasy IV, but I cannot deny how well VII has aged, nor can I deny its role as one of the most popular and critically-acclaimed video games of all time.

Which brings me to my first point: given just how well-liked Final Fantasy VII is, someone somewhere was going to be let down with at least one decision or another. It’s the nature of the beast, and probably part of the reason that Square Enix was so apprehensive to try and recreate this game in years past. Even less heavily altered updates to classic games like the 3DS ports of the N64 Legend of Zelda titles were met with criticisms regarding changes made to their save systems and the inclusion of helpful hints for gamers who may have been too young to have experienced Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask during their original release.

Also, Final Fantasy VII is a very large game, in both scale and assets. This can be said about most Final Fantasy titles, yes, but each of the areas that Cloud and company visit are full of detail, with many rooms or sections to explore, not to mention the vast expanses beyond the walls of Midgar. And given that the developers intend to add more content than was originally included in the PS1 release, it kind of makes sense that they would want to take their time and stagger the release process instead of dropping it all at once, with less content than they had planned. So long as the remake of Final Fantasy VII is released in reasonably-sized chunks at a relatively consistent rate, I see no problem with this plan. If anything, the feedback Square Enix receives from each installment will help to improve their efforts on the next one.

I admit, I’m not entirely sold on their decision to utilize a new battle system. In my opinion, ATB is one of the best battle systems in any JRPG to date, and as the old saying goes: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” At the same time, the recent gameplay trailer only offered us quick glimpses of the new battle system, and I don’t think anyone outside of Square Enix is entirely sure as to how the combat works just yet.

I’m a big fan of the character designs for Cloud and Barret. Barret is a reasonably-proportioned human instead of some cartoonish hulking goliath, while Cloud looks tall and thin, much like his in-battle character model from the PS1 version. I feel their voices are also incredibly appropriate, and so far (fingers crossed that this carries on through the rest of the remake) Barret does not appear to act the part of the racist caricature that he was in an era gone by. Obviously, only time will tell how the ultimate end product looks and plays, but I feel that this remake has quite the potential to do its original incarnation justice, and perhaps even improve upon some of the world’s locations and character interactions.

Character Select: Rydia of Mist (Final Fantasy IV)

Once in a blue moon, I come across a video game that I would consider ‘definitive’ to its genre or series. Final Fantasy IV is one such game, taking the essence of what turn-based JRPGs are all about, and cranking the gameplay up a notch with the introduction of the active-time battle system. It takes the medieval fantasy aesthetic to fantastical settings, with a skeleton wall bearing down on Cecil Harvey and company deep below the surface of their world, a massive tower that bursts forth from the ground to loom over the countryside, and a journey to the moon in order to make the final strike against the true foe of this epic adventure. And while Cecil, Kain, Rosa, Yang, Cid, and the rest of the playable cast were a lovable, iconic bunch, the one character that I adored from the moment of her introduction to the climactic finale was Rydia of Mist.

I think it is not much of a stretch to say that Final Fantasy IV spoiled me, in a way, offering me such a perfect balancing of party members over the course of the game, Rydia being chief among them. She is unquestionably the greatest black mage I have encountered in a Final Fantasy title to date, a role that has long been a core element to my strategies in JRPGs. Even more impressive is the fact that, on top of this, she is also the best summoner I have encountered in the series. I have made mention a number of times that my experiences with the proper numbered Final Fantasy titles remains limited to about six games, but even in the company of other JRPGs that I very much enjoyed, like Persona 4, Rydia still stands out as a force to be reckoned with. She never feels overpowered, per se, but the sheer variety of summons and spells at her disposal late in Final Fantasy IV is incredible.

Her story is also quite well-written – simple enough to juggle with the narratives surrounding all the other major players in FFIV, but elaborate enough to give players a reason to care about her plight. When Cecil and Kain first encounter Rydia, she is saddened by the destruction brought upon her village by the Red Wings, the very team that Cecil and Kain serve, and the fact that the two dark knights inadvertently caused the death of her mother while fighting her Eidolon. All this sorrow and anger causes the young girl to call upon an Eidolon of her own, displaying firsthand to Cecil and Kain the unthinkable powers they have upset. Though their alliance is uneasy at first, Cecil’s decision to abandon his role as dark knight and seek out the underlying machinations involving Golbez leads Rydia to see him as someone more human and trustworthy than she initially believed.

After an attack at sea by Leviathan, the rest of the party believes the young girl has died, and mourns her, only to later discover she was taken to the Feymarch, home of the Eidolons. Because time passes faster in the Feymarch, Rydia was able to hone her skills as both black mage and summoner, growing from child into young woman, and returning to aid her friends and allies when they needed her most. As an adult, Rydia is more calm and collected, and carries a noticeable air of confidence about her. There is, however, a certain element of pep and feistiness to the way that she takes on foes in battle – perhaps due to the fact that, having improved all of her abilities, she knows that her Eidolons are capable of laying waste to as many foes might stand in her way.

Character Select: Kanji Tatsumi (Persona 4)

Sometimes the reason a video game resonates with us so powerfully has to do with the characters we encounter along the way. This post marks the first in a new series I will be adding new entries to every on a semi-regular basis, and which will explore some of my favorite characters from different video game series in brief. Simply stated, these posts will be more along the lines of quick blurbs than full-fledged articles, though I may have more to say about certain characters than others due to a variety of factors – the numbers of games they have appeared in, the degree to which I have found myself entertained by their antics or invested in their development, etc.

Following the legacy of handsome blond-haired bruisers like Final Fantasy IV's Kain Highwind, Kanji is rough, tough, and hits like a truck. What lends Kanji to stand out from the crowd is his personality, and his role as part of a modern social commentary. While other JRPGs remain rooted in the expansive fantasy realms that first put them on the map, the Persona titles opt for a contemporary setting, featuring high school kids capable of using the powers of the Arcana to summon their respective Personas and – in the case of Persona 4 – defeat the shadow monsters of the Midnight Channel as they piece together a mysterious series of kidnappings in the rural town of Inaba. Kanji is one of the Persona series’ most striking reflections of modern sensibilities, as his shadow form, a physical manifestation of his inner struggles, deals with a confusion of his own sexual identity and the interpretation of what others view as ‘manly’ and ‘masculine’ versus what he knows he is good at and passionate about. While Kanji’s actual sexual orientation is somewhat left up to each player’s own interpretation, it’s certainly easy to find yourself invested in his story, especially when it comes to accepting the fact that some people might think his sewing and crafting skills are unusual, but that it is more than acceptable for him to take pride in these. I also found the clash of Kanji’s badass scrappy external image and the fact that he could become so easily flustered when put on the spot to be entertaining, as well as facets that further lent to his progress being arguably more human and meaningful than some of his P4 comrades, and certainly a more compelling individual tale than many other JRPGs have to offer these days.

"You Look Terrible, Snake" #1 - Final Fantasy X

“You look terrible, Snake. You haven’t aged well.” – Gray Fox (Metal Gear Solid)

You may have noticed how the vast majority of the games I review on this blog end up with scores of a ‘7 out of 10’ or higher. Being that this is a one-man show, I typically find that any game I feel is going to score considerably lower than that is something I’d prefer not to waste my time on. There are the occasional anomalies – within the last year I scored The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds a 6.75, while Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes fared even poorer, earning a 4.5, though to be fair, both of those titles were considerably shorter than many of the other games I completed in 2014.

This is the start of a new series of articles, one that will likely be delivered infrequently, as I don’t want to come across as a downer too often. That said, this series will explore games that left me thoroughly disappointed for a number of reasons. Some of these games were still solid products on the whole, but failed to deliver on key design points. Others are total stinkers in my book, and I have a hunch that some of you will not agree with my take on at least a few of the titles to come. But that’s one of the great things about reviewing video games – for as much time as I might spend picking a game apart and voicing a negative opinion of it, there is someone else out there who hails it as one of their personal favorites, and vice-versa. With all that out of the way, the first game in this series will be Final Fantasy X.

My familiarity with the core Final Fantasy series was, until about five years ago, practically nonexistent. I could have told you which box art went with which game, that I understood the seventh game in the series was heralded by many as one of the best video game releases of all time, and that the tenth entry was supposed to be a strong contender as well. During my college years, I decided to pick up some used copies of a handful of Final Fantasy titles, after having played FFXIII, the DS remake of FFIV, and the Wii Virtual Console re-release of the original Final Fantasy. FFVII and FFX were the two among these gently-used purchases that I was most eager to experience, and were the two titles that had most frequently been recommended to me.

I think it important to point out that I did not (nor do I have any intention to) finish Final Fantasy X. I am, however, very much aware of the fact that any meaty JRPG like those in the Final Fantasy series require patience to grow accustomed to and allow the story to take shape. And so I waited. And waited. And waited, all the while slowly growing to realize how much I did not enjoy the experience. The battle system was unnecessarily obtuse in design, making encounters with foes boring, even sometimes frustrating. The freedom to level characters up as you so desired was one of the best mechanics in the game, and I certainly appreciated its role as predecessor to FFXIII’s crystarium, but its value was brought down by the fact that the characters I had to choose from were an uninspired and cliché lot.

At least Auron is alright as the stand-in for Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Lulu was a one-dimensional byproduct of the emo/goth subculture of the early 2000s, snapping at Wakka for his saying something that upset her, yet leaving Tidus and myself in the dark as to why such a response was necessary or justified, let alone how she was supposedly a deep character with a complicated past tying into Wakka's own. Meanwhile, Kimahri’s strong silent and mysterious nature coupled with his tall and furry body made him a dead ringer as a Chewbacca wannabe. Tidus proved obnoxious one moment, with his inhuman laugh and awkward bumbling through conversations with Yuna and Lulu, then super flat and unconvincing the next, as his dialogue served to imply genuine concern or curiosity regarding his comrades and the journey ahead, yet the way these lines were delivered showed just how uninterested the cast members were with this whole ordeal. Auron, the one character that I actually gravitated toward and wanted to learn more about, was denied time in the spotlight over and over. While I realize much of this was likely due for dramatic buildup for a later plot twist, the lack of information I was being fed eventually led me to give up on caring about him as well.

I similarly found myself in a position of not giving two hoots about impossible-hair-sporting Seymour Guado. I loved the ‘bring it on’ attitude Golbez and his four most trusted generals displayed in FFIV, the laser-faced monstrosity that was Barthendelus in FFXIII; heck, even Caius Ballad was an entertaining (if not a tad shallow) extremist in his attempts to defy time and fate. While FFVII’s Sephiroth is arguably more important as a plot device than multifaceted foe, the compounding of his and Jenova’s involvement in the plot made for an ever-mysterious, yet consistently compelling major plot thread. In FFX, Seymour is just sort of a cocky and generally unlikeable individual. He only gets what he wants on account of his social status and charms, and has seemingly never been told ‘no’ by anyone. The idea that so many people held him in high regard was a mystery to me, as I was given no basis as to why he was supposed to be so well-received, and thus similarly the idea that there was a complex ‘love-to-hate-this-guy’ dynamic at play was entirely lost. As far as I was concerned, Seymour was even more boring and uncharismatic as most of the core cast members.

Seymour's hairdo is one of the dumbest video game character design points I have ever seen.

Which in turn, added to my not caring about the world, its people, or the story at large. With a game that requires so much time to complete, and that places its conflict on such a large scale, one would hope it would utilize its heroes, villains, culture, and major plot points to craft something larger than the sum of its parts. But with so many paper-thin aspects to this creative vision, it resulted in the overall product lacking any real entertaining direction, which in turn, killed my desire to continue forward with it. Giant fish that signals the end of an era? Bring it up here and there, but fail to elaborate on it when the opportunity presents itself. Blitzball? An abysmal mess that is as messy in concept as it is in execution. Each time the game was presented ample opportunity to flesh out its narrative and elaborate on what was happening and attempt to convince me as to why I should be the slightest bit invested, it casually cruised right past them.

But perhaps Final Fantasy X’s greatest sin comes from the lack of freedom in picking a play style that suits you. I understand that many older RPGs tend to focus on a core cast, emphasizing them as the game progresses. FFIV did this, but it did it well, as the game chugs along at such a pace that you are allotted plenty of time to familiarize yourself with the abilities of the White Mages, the Knights, the Summoners, and so forth, that when you reach the later legs of the journey, you are well-versed in strategizing with Kain, Cecil, Rosa, Rydia, and Edge. Each has their own specific skill set, yes, but they also offer sufficient flexibility that you are not simply going through the motions as picking the one end-all be-all path to success.

FFXIII, while host to a smaller playable cast, emphasizes two to three skill trees per character, allowing Snow to offer up his Ravager and Sentinel skills to the part, Fang to juggle Commando and Saboteur, and Hope to try his hand at both Medic and Synergist. Of course late in the game, the other three trees per character that were deemed ‘less than ideal’ are expanded upon, but by the time that portion of the adventure is reached, each character has effectively already come into his/her primary roles. FFX, on the other hand, is designed with the mentality of the player adhering to how the game believes it should be played, with a very odd and unbalanced set of roles to select from. Both Kimahri and Auron fit the heavy-hitter physical attackers, while Tidus is meant to be the sort of middle ground 'knight', albeit with significantly less impressive results that Cloud, Lightning, Cecil, or even that which the vanilla Knights from FFI offered up.

The OG Black Mage/Summoner, Rydia of Mist.

 Wakka’s enchanted weaponry gets the job done early on, but also caps out too soon for any long-term use to be a worthwhile consideration. Meanwhile, Lulu is the most pathetic excuse for a Black Mage I’ve encountered in any JRPG I’ve played to date. For a while, I thought perhaps I was simply being too harsh toward her skill set, considering I had only recently completed FFIV before I started FFX, and that it would be one heck of a tall order for anyone to stack up to Rydia. Yet, Yuna does just fine with her White Mage/Summoner combo, as unorthodox as it might be. And yeah, of course Yuna is going to have weaker defense than most of her comrades, but while Lulu is intended to be a glass cannon, her shots are practically nonexistent. Hell, the blue-robed and yellow-eyed sprites from FFI put up a bombastic display in comparison, and their attacks – while still specialized – are nowhere near as expansive as any of the Final Fantasy titles that followed.

The soundtrack is great – in my opinion, one of the best in the series. And both the graphical and art direction stood out to me as early hooks that made me want to get lost and immersed in this game’s story and style. Final Fantasy X was a game that I wanted so desperately to enjoy, and it failed me in spades.

Anime review: Persona 3: The Movie - #1: Spring of Birth

Following the release of the anime adaptation of Atlus’ well-received Persona 4, film trilogy was announced adapt the story of its predecessor, Persona 3. The first of these films, titled Spring of Birth, serves primarily to set the stage for all that is to come, introducing some of the major characters, teasing the eventual inclusion of others, and familiarizing viewers with the concept of the Dark Hour and Tartarus. While it may cut out a great deal of the content that falls between major plot points, this first installment in the movie trilogy does a solid job at hitting all of the important notes, though its pacing is admittedly a bit odd.

The story begins much like its video game counterpart, with the mostly-silent protagonist (given the name of Makoto Yuuki for the purpose that other characters will constantly be engaging in conversations with or about him) moving into co-ed dorms near Gekkoukan High and experiencing some strange phenomenon. Every night at midnight, clocks, vehicles, and all manner of machinery stop and most people are sealed away in coffins, entering a sort of stasis during a period known as the Dark Hour. The Dark Hour is effectively an hour-long span of time that is only perceived by those with special potential, namely individuals who can all upon Personas to aid them in battle against otherworldly monsters known as Shadows.

On the night of a full moon, these Shadows become notably stronger and more aggressive than usual, breaking out of their natural territory within the fortress of Tartarus, and taking to the streets of the outside world. It is upon one such night that protagonist Makoto Yuuki finds himself in the company of his peers and classmates Mitsuru Kiriho, Akihiko Sanada, and Yukari Takeba, as the Shadows are bearing down upon their dormitory building. Not fully understanding the nature of these Shadow monsters or his schoolmate’s operations with the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad (S.E.E.S. for short), Makoto almost instinctively reaches for an Evoker, a gun-shaped device that the S.E.E.S. members rely on, and uses it to summon his first Persona.

What follows, naturally, is an action-packed beat down of the Shadows by Makoto’s Persona, dubbed Orpheus. But there is seemingly something sinister that lurks within his Persona, as – shortly before Makoto passes out from exhaustion – it transforms into a menacing creature that appears to bear some sort of skeletal face and spreads its coffin-shaped wings. Not long after, Makoto recovers and is formerly inducted into S.E.E.S. His peers make a point to bring up that relying too heavily on one’s Persona can be problematic, yet Makoto’s visits to the ethereal Velvet Room make it apparent that his ability to summon multiple Personas makes him an anomaly among Persona users.

From there, the movie takes on two very different approaches to crafting the world and characters or Persona 3 – when highlighting new party members like Fuuka and Junpei, the story’s pacing slows significantly to explain their importance to the operations of S.E.E.S., as well as give viewers a strong impression of their character traits and personal values. This makes their inclusion all the more meaningful, and is one of the film’s greatest strengths, and should provide some relief for any Persona fans who were concerned that this three-film adaptation might attempt to do too much in too brief a time span. Even Shinjiro sees some inclusion in the film, helping to solidify his inevitable recruitment to the S.E.E.S. cause in the second film, while Koromaru and Ken both make brief cameos during the opening credits.

On the other hand, the film barrels past the everyday school studies, athletics and club activities, and time spent out on the town. The anime adaptation of Persona 4 similarly kept its focus on the major story points, but still slowed down every once in a while to explore the Inaba locals and the small yet personal rewards Yu Narukami and his teenage crew of investigators earned as a result of their setting aside time to tackle minor requests. In this first Persona 3 film, the most direct involvement with teachers, classmates, and non-S.E.E.S. peers comes in the form of brief montages. While these sequences do show Makoto taking part in some school activities and even meeting up with Junpei for an afternoon at the arcade, it doesn’t offer as solid an immersion in Gekkoukan High or its surrounding locales.

The animation is solid throughout – arguably better than the Persona 4 anime, in most cases. Character renders have seen significant updates in terms of their level of detail and fluid motions from the cutscenes that played out during the original Persona 3 video game. The splotchy dark watercolor look of the invading Dark Hour on previously-established environments does a great job of presenting these areas as both familiar and alien. Meanwhile the few portions of Tartarus that are shown present it as a labyrinth fortress, with elegant floors, arched windows, and dull lighting emanating from wall-mounted candles. The soundtrack brings back a number of the video games’ upbeat and peppy tunes, as well as some of the more dire, heavy rock-influenced songs, with remixes sprinkled throughout (some significantly altered, others with more subtle tweaks).

Spring of Birth is not a perfect adaptation of the Persona 3 story, and its hour-and-a-half runtime begs the question as to how successful the two following films will adapt the later legs of the video game source material. The material that the film does cut out may not have left a major impact on the core plot of Persona 3, but it does rob the film of some of the video game’s unique quirks, as well as any connections between the S.E.E.S. members and their non-Persona-adept classmates. The major points that it does focus on, however, are handled quite well, and go a long way in establishing connections between the S.E.E.S. members, as well as painting the Shadows of Tartarus as an ever-looming threat, even if one scene late in the film is drawn out to an agonizing length and almost laughably bad presentation.

My rating: 7 (out of 10)

3DS review: Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth

The first game from the Persona series to be released on Nintendo’s 3DS is an odd summation of Atlus’ works, to say the very least. All of the useable party members from Persona 3 and Persona 4 are drawn together in a school that seemingly exists outside of normal time and space – the Persona 3 heroes and heroines hailing from the year 2009, while the Persona 4 cast arriving from some point in 2011, which is as simple and convenient an explanation as is need for why the characters look exactly the same as they did during their respective major adventures as any. Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth adopts a chibi art style that translates surprisingly well to the slightly altered gameplay of this spinoff title, while the dungeon crawling elements are ripped directly from the Etrian Odyssey series of RPGs.

It’s a curious amalgam, no doubt, but one that works wonders for this surprisingly fully-realized sidestory. Regardless of whether you play the story from the perspective of the Persona 3 cast or the Persona 4 cast, the premise and major story points play out in effectively the same manner, albeit with greater input from the respective cast members on one side or the other. All of the party members find themselves pulled into the Velvet Room, face-to-face with either Elizabeth or Margaret, who explains that the threads of fate are working in ways they cannot explain, yet they know what lies ahead is important to the protagonists’ personal journeys. Upon arriving in an alternate version of Yasogami High School, the P3 and P4 cast members are introduced to Zen and Rei, two amnesiacs who are apparently the only individuals they can interact with outside of their Velvet Room associates. When the party realizes they cannot leave the school due to two doors leading to their respective eras within the Velvet Room being locked, they begin to investigate the first of the school’s festival exhibits, which turns out to be a winding and multi-level labyrinth. Zen and Rei seem quite familiar with the behavior of the Shadows that lie in wait within the labyrinth, despite not having any Personas to call their own, and thus accompany the party on their first exploration of this new realm.

Combat carries over some key elements from the core Persona games, but swaps out others. Instead of earning an immediate second strike on an enemy after exposing which magical element it is weak to, party members are instead treated to a boosted state, wherein they will be allowed to move faster the following turn as well as utilize magic and specialized physical attacks at no cost from their SP or HP meters. The same goes for landing critical strikes. Many of the enemy types will prove familiar to Persona veterans, so those who have previously experienced Persona 3 or Persona 4 may find the variety of run-of-the-mill enemies less trifling early in the game. Capitalizing on this strategy can lead to a higher chance of being offered the Persona series’ signature cartoonish ‘pile-on’ all-out-attacks, and chaining these in successive turns can result in significantly faster victories, as well as experience point reward bonuses and new Personas.

With sixteen playable characters to choose from, there is a lot of freedom offered to how you organize your party. While you are required to keep at least one of the protagonists in the mix at all times, the other four spots can be split between the front and back rows, with three open spaces per row. Should you prefer to place your heavy hitters on the frontline, this can lead to enemies taking greater damage from bash and cut attacks, but will simultaneously place those heroes more directly in harm’s way, as they will generally be the first to take the brunt of an attack. The back row, meanwhile, is ideal for support members, as well as ranged attackers. Some players may prefer three in the back and two in the front, while others prefer the opposite – it’s all a matter of personal preference, though careful strategy and management are just as important as ever, as Persona Q’s difficulty factor increases a bit more frequently than that of Persona 4.

Each labyrinth plays host to a strikingly different thematic, including the fantasy realm of Alice in Wonderland and a haunted school exhibit based off classic Japanese horror tropes. Each is introduced as being exhibits put on as part of the school fair, yet behind their innocent exterior lies a complicated series of hallways and multiple floors, each ending with boss fights that appropriately match the tone of each labyrinth. Entertaining as their brief moments in the spotlight are, the bosses do not play nearly as an integral role in the development of the story and characters – quite unlike the bosses encountered in Persona 4’s Midnight Channel, which served as the darkest parts of the P4 party members’ psyches and self-images, allowing them in turn to grow as individuals once they had learned to accept these imperfections.

Navigating the labyrinths can take a brief while to grow accustomed to, as filling in shortcuts, points of interest, and locations of stairwells is up to the player. This is where the touch screen and stylus come to play an integral role, as any errors in the labyrinth’s layout displayed on the mini-map or missteps in navigation are the player’s responsibility. Knowing where shortcuts are located is key for solving some of the game’s more involved puzzles, and can also provide a quick escape from a pursuing FOE, which effectively serve as the closest thing Person Q has to offer for miniboss battles. Treasure chests can reward players with new armor, weapons, and accessories, while larger chests often house rare and more powerful items, but can only be opened once a floor’s map has been filled in to one-hundred percent completion. Power spots offer up rare materials, typically with one or two being located on any given floor on a labyrinth.

FOEs are incredibly powerful, and though some of the game’s ‘request’ sidequests ask that your party take them on to reap tempting rewards, it is typically best to wait until your party is decently leveled up from their exploration of the following labyrinth before returning to face these beasts in familiar territory. Each FOE sports a unique visual style and behavioral pattern that, much like the game’s bosses, match their respective environments – The card soldiers in the Alice in Wonderland labyrinth patrol set paths, while sometimes directing their attention to tending to bouquets of flowers. Other FOEs will attempt to draw you in from a distance, while others still will adjust their speed and behavior based on whether or not you are in possession of a particular item specific to that labyrinth.

While social links have been entirely removed from the experience, the aforementioned requests can still be accepted the school’s Nurse’s Office. Some of these have a time limit, and these ones typically yield greater payoff, both in terms of physical items and experience points. Some requests can only be activated by visiting specific areas of the game’s labyrinths, while others require use of specific party members. Thankfully, these never result in tying your hands too much with regards to how you can or cannot carry tasks out, and the requests are divided quite evenly between combat-focused treks back into familiar labyrinths and dialogue selection options among your friends and allies related to the school’s fair activities.

Visiting the Velvet Room is, once again, the means through which you can fuse Personas to gain more desirable abilities. Whereas in previous Persona titles the protagonist was privy to use of as many Personas as he/she could carry at a time, Persona Q restricts the P3 and P4 protagonists to use of their iconic main Personas and one other interchangeable Persona. However, the tradeoff to this restrictive measure is that every one of your party members – with the exception of Zen and Rei – can also utilize a secondary Persona alongside their primary canon Persona. This rule also applies to Rise and Fukka, the game’s labyrinth navigation specialists – while they do not join combat directly, their Personas can make use of abilities specific to their roles, offering up offense and accuracy buffs based on the fullness of the P3 or P4 protagonist’s ‘leader skill’ meter, as well as passive ones, like a wider range for detective shortcuts within a labyrinth or a higher rate of cancelling out preemptive strikes from enemies.

There is a limit of sixty individual items to you party’s inventory, which may seem like plenty of storage space early on, but can lead to many trips back and forth from labyrinths later in the game. Any materials recovered that are not specific to a certain sidequest can be sold to Theodore, the youngest sibling of Margaret and Elizabeth, who can craft new weapons, armor, and equipable items from them. Theodore also offers up occasional tidbits of information on particular enemies and sections of the labyrinths as they relate to specific sidequests, making his role in the game a bit more than simple shopkeeper.

The tone of Persona Q is not unlike its predecessor Persona 4 - dark and tense at times, with an overall sense of free-spirited adventure that is a successful match to the teenage heroes and heroines it revolves around. With the social links and larger world absent, Persona Q does not boast as fully-realized or complex a narrative as the core numbered entries, but it is a surprisingly meaty experience for a spinoff. While interacting with your friends in the halls of this phantom Yasogami High does not actually play into the endgame result, the dialogue flows very naturally and shows that a great deal of care went into preserving these characters and their mannerisms. While greater depth to character interactions during these periods of downtime would have been appreciated, the illusions Persona Q relies on to cover this gap are moderately successful, and - if nothing else - maintain the game’s atmosphere well enough.

The soundtrack is jazzy and upbeat, incorporating some hip-hop flair and hard rock vibes into vocal tracks. Other tunes are remixes of tracks that debuted in previous games, but they mesh quite nicely with Persona Q’s new audio offerings. On the whole, the sound design of Persona Q is among the best the 3DS has seen yet, with endearing performances from series veterans and the couple of newcomers alike. Persona Q could have easily been a quick, one-and-done, bare-bones spinoff, but instead it offers up an energetic and intriguing story. The main story will likely last players sixty hours or more, and the bonus ‘new game plus’ allows both money and the compendium completion to be carried over into higher difficulty settings and the opportunity to try out new party configurations. While it may not have all the makings of a proper numbered entry in the Persona series, Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth is nonetheless a labor of love, filled with references to previous games and fluid gameplay that offers an incredibly rewarding experience for fans of either Persona 3, Persona 4, or both.

My rating: 9 (out of 10)

Aesthetic appeal in JRPGs: Persona 5 and Final Fantasy XV

This morning, my Twitter feed was abuzz with word of the first proper trailer for Persona 5. While Atlus did offer us a teaser in 2014, this new footage showed off more action-packed anime cutscenes in greater detail, as well as some of the dungeon-crawling and shop-browsing. While the majority of the response was positive, my own feelings toward the trailer were a tad mixed. To be fair, my experiences with the Persona series are relatively limited – I only played through Persona 4 within the past year and a half, am currently entering the late hours of Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, and have spent a grand total of about twenty minutes with Persona 4 Arena. With that in mind, I have very much enjoyed the Persona games as I’ve played them thus far, and even the anime adaptation of Persona 4 was a solid offering, despite its need to condense the forty-plus hours required to play through its video game counterpart.

The new Persona 5 trailer

I did notice, however, one particular tweet that stated how someone had watched both this new Persona 5 trailer and the Final Fantasy XV gameplay trailer back-to-back, and how they felt it 'put things in perspective'. While I can’t speak on their behalf, I can say that this individual’s particular post led me to go and rewatch the Final Fantasy XV gameplay trailer from the Tokyo Game Show 2014, and I have since drawn some conclusions about the presentations of both titles. Obviously these titles are both a ways off yet, and we don’t know everything about the final product, so this is less my attempt at gauging the final games themselves, rather my thoughts on what we know of them so far and some concerns I have with the angle both Atlus and Square Enix are taking in trying to sell these titles.

To be blunt, I have very little faith in Final Fantasy XV. It’s been repurposed from Final Fantasy Versus XIII, which spent nigh on a half-decade in development hell. It appears to follow the action RPG formula, and the last time an FF title did that (Final Fantasy XII), it was met with heavily polarized reception. Equally strange is how un-Final Fantasy this latest numbered entry looks. There seems to be some strange obsession in the industry today that because our consoles have higher graphical capabilities than ever before, developers ought to push highly-detailed and hyper-realistic character and environment models, instead of being creative and adventurous. The problem with this approach is that the aesthetic loses its identity. Instead of colorful monsters and exciting Chocobo rides, we have been treated to dull brown behemoths and futuristic armor-clad soldiers with less variety in textures than Final Fantasy XIII’s Psicom troops. And all of this is presented through the eyes of a small group of stereotypical dude-bros with pretty faces and silly hair, getting overly excited as they spot these uninspired designs from an equally boring high-end car - one that looks like it could be driving through the Hamptons this very minute. Even the earlier trailer that announced Versus XIII’s rebranding as FFXV highlighted some (again) all-too-familiar Mediterranean architecture. There are no suits of Magitek armor to be seen, no medieval knights boarding a fight to the moon, no massive structures that combine ancient culture and space-age tech in seemingly impossible fluidity. There is a complete absence glory and fanfare in the overall presentation - just a group of handsome guys on a road trip, and their 'oohs' and 'aahs' at the other in-game assets proved a failed attempt at trying to evoke the same reaction from me.

The TGS 2014 gameplay trailer for Final Fantasy XV

Persona 5’s trailer showcases what I can only assume to be the base cast – four characters, including the neutral-looking male protagonist, his two blonde-haired friends (one male, one female), and a cat. I say the ‘base cast’ because that was how Persona 4 operated – the game offered three playable characters almost immediately, with the fourth (Yukiko) added to your crew only a few hours into the experience. From there, the other party members (Kanji, Rise, Teddie, and Naoto, respectively) were gradually incorporated into the story. Today’s trailer highlighted some chandelier-hopping, stealthy dashes down a hallway, the different places around the city that will be visited, and a couple of the menu systems and shops. It’s a lot to throw at fans of the series right off the bat, but understanding just how narrative-driven Persona titles are (yes, even a spinoff like Persona Q), this trailer has merely shown the tip of the iceberg.

What little was shown of the gameplay evoked an overwhelmingly positive response from me – the dungeon-crawling looks slightly more free-form than in Persona 4, but relies on the same general layout and design as far as I can tell. The shops appear almost entirely unchanged, albeit with new faces running them, and there will apparently be ample time spent in class or hanging out with friends. Though no fusions were explicitly shown, the Velvet Room’s Igor made a brief appearance, indicating that the familiar Persona Compendium will make a return. The aesthetic direction of this latest numbered entry in the Persona series has me unsettled, however, as the emphasis on black, red, and white is strikingly similar to the currently-popular Danganronpa games/anime.

I realize that aesthetic appeal is not something that everyone weighs with the same degree of importance. But for me, I at least want to enjoy looking at what it is that is on the screen in front of me, especially when I’m going to be spending anywhere between forty hours or more with a game. I might not be so disappointed with these four P5 characters if three of them were not such simply boring designs. The protagonist bears a striking resemblance to Vincent from Atlus’ surrealistic puzzle stacker, Catherine. Meanwhile, the blonde boy and girl have very few defining characteristics. I feel this is in part due to the darker color palette of Persona 5, as it emphasizes black suit jackets and pants for their school uniforms, and there similarly do not appear to be many distinguishing features in their bandit/super hero/vigilante costumes aside from them having different colors (which are, again, under dark lighting). I will give Atlus props on the cartoony, scarf-donning cat, who is easily the standout crew member at this point. But whereas Kanji was instantly recognizable thanks to his skull t-shirts and refusal to wear his jacket properly, Naoto's hat and coat quite becoming of a mysterious young detective, and Yosuke's headphone's and sharp smile subtle nods to his being the child of a successful business-owning family, the P5 cast - at least, as they stand right now - fall into territory that could easily have them confused for Danganronpa or generic characters from any other contemporary anime.

PS2 review: Persona 4

It’s the start of a new school year, and a high school student has moved to the small town of Inaba to live with his uncle Dojima, a local detective, and young cousin Nanako. Shortly after his arrival, this high schooler learns of a few odd happenings around Inaba. First is the Midnight Channel, a static-laden television broadcast that seems to display the faces of certain locals on rainy nights as the clock strikes twelve. Second is a series of murders that, while involving victims who were seemingly unrelated, may be connected through their faces appearing on the Midnight Channel prior to their deaths. After making a few friends among his classmates, this newcomer decides to investigate the murders, utilizing a newfound ability to enter a world behind the television screen and call upon the Arcana powers of Personas.

The ability to utilize multiple Personas and their varying powers and skill sets is what sets the player-controlled protagonist apart from his comrades – you, the player, are able to adjust your own play style on the fly. You are only able to take three others with you into any given dungeon crawling session, and while some are better suited as healers, physical fighters, or stat boosters, each tends to specialize in at least one type of magic. In the case of Yukiko, her Persona hits foes with fire attacks and can also heal up party members, while Kanji is more focused on physical attacks at the cost of some lost HP, as well as electric attacks and a couple of boosts to your party members’ stats. In order to best compliment the offerings that your companions bring to the fight, you will need to visit the ethereal plane of the Velvet Room and fuse Personas that you collect from defeating enemies. Each Persona is attributed to a different symbol of the Arcana, such as Death, the Tower, the High Priestess, the Hierophant, the Chariot, the Lovers, and so forth. Building up your social links in-between your dungeon crawling sessions is key to earning experience bonuses when fusing these Personas and granting your allies a greater range of abilities in battle.

Maxing out every social link in a single playthrough is impossible, so it’s up to your own discretion in determining which social links you wish to pursue. Those associated with jobs and tasks around town typically take less time to complete, though the bonuses earned from your party members’ social links are always more significant, making the extra time it takes to complete them all the more worthwhile. Social links with some of the female party members and classmates can also open the door to romantic pursuits, though these are not necessary and you can opt to remain as friends – it will simply prompt altered and extra dialogue segments after you have cemented an intimate relationship.

With the option to participate in sports and school clubs, take up part-time jobs, spend time fishing, tutoring, and so on, no two playthroughs will be quite the same. The large amount of downtime in-between dungeons is one of the elements that sets Persona 4 so far apart from many of its JRPG contemporaries. Which of these tasks you decide to take up will boost your skills in Understanding, Diligence, Courage, Expression, and Knowledge, and jobs will net you extra cash depending on how devoted or focused you are. Meanwhile, the dungeon exploration segments are reminiscent of some of the older Final Fantasy titles, with multiple sprawling floors of interconnected chambers and hallways, and enemies that become tougher the higher you climb. While the earliest of dungeons are host to classic fantasy aesthetics, later locales includes a sauna, an anime-style secret base, and a metaphysical 8-bit video game.

Each dungeon concludes with a challenging boss fight, though each boss has a relatively predictable pattern of attacks, buffs, and defensive options. While these could not be more different from one boss encounter to the next, you may find that being beaten the first time you attempt to take on one of these powerful foes will grant you a more solid plan of attack with the next attempt. Later dungeons include a mid-dungeon miniboss encounter, while every dungeon includes two kinds of chests – small chests, which often contain health and magic-replenishing items, and golden chests, which must be opened with keys that are sometimes earned from fallen enemies. These golden chests often contain weapons or armor, as well as rare and valuable materials for crafting at the local metalsmith.

Persona 4’s approach to the dungeons is highly unorthodox, as it is not required that you complete each dungeon in a single attempt. Rather, you can tackle any given dungeon over the course of multiple days (or multiple weeks, even). The only risk you run of seeing a ‘game over’ screen is if you do not reach the end of a dungeon by the time heavy rain and the fog that follows are to set in, which would effectively see to the death of whoever has been thrown into the television world at that time due to the enemy shadows growing overly powerful.

However, Persona 4 suffers from an archaic save system, in that the only places you are able to save the game are the hubworld area within the Midnight Channel, and the final floor preceding each dungeon’s boss fight. And while it would be fine and dandy to save after you’ve cleared each and every floor of each dungeon, the amount of money you would waste on the Goho-M items which warp your party back to the dungeon entrance would prove ludicrous in the long run. This certainly adds an old-school RPG challenge factor to the combat-heavy portions of the game, but it can also be quite frustrating, especially in the earlier dungeons when you have a less concrete idea of how tough the enemies that lie in wait ahead are going to be.

When you do square off against enemy Shadows, it is important to learn what sorts of attacks each is weak to, as well as what your own Personas a weak against. Hitting an enemy with whatever they are weak to will net you both a critical hit and an immediate bonus strike to either finish them off or to focus your efforts on another enemy on the field. Ocassionally, your allies will request to perform a strong physical attack, which will always end in a critical hit. These criticals, as well as the ones earned from exploiting an enemy’s weakness, will cause them to fall down. If all foes in a fight have fallen, your party can then band together to pile on in a cartoonish cloud of dust and sound effect symbols, dishing out a heaping helping of damage that frequently finishes those enemies off.

After your newest ally faces their shadow self at the conclusion of a dungeon, they will begin to open up to you about their insecurities and personal struggles. For some, these are more commonplace pressures of feeling the need to please family and friends, or adhere to certain expectations that others have for them. In a few cases, the game takes a very twenty-first century approach to deconstructing characters by exploring their confusions regarding sexuality and their own gender identities. Persona 4 does a magnificent job of tackling these in a pointed manner while still maintaining its often cartoonish and comedic routine, which goes a long way in advancing classic staples of the JRPG subgenre, hand-in-hand with the highly-creative dungeon designs and emphasis on non-combat subplots and game mechanics.

While Persona 4 does well to consistently deliver generally high quality and quantity for the sum of its parts, the endgame stretch does fall victim to a streamlining process that robs the experience of some of its quirky spirit as well as the previously high degree of interactivity and player freedom. The last few hours of the game effectively become a series of pre-scripted dialogue sequences, some of which can result in a ‘bad ending’ cutscene if selected improperly. The motives for key individuals will also likely leave a great number of devotees disappointed, given how uninspired and plain stupid they are both in the context of the game world and as general driving forces for character development were they to be applied to a story in any other medium. That said, most of the party members weave stories that pan out in rewarding manners, so while the experience does see some significant falters later on, the journey taken there is, by and large, an excellent modernized spin on the fundamentals of classic JRPGs.

My rating: 8.75 (out of 10)