Recent reviews by E•MO•TION (アンソニー)

*Spoilers ahead*

Ys VIII was my first venture into the Ys series, and only my second Falcom game after playing Tokyo Xanadu last year. After reading about it, I saw that the battle system and whatnot would be similar to TX, so I kinda knew what I was getting into in that regard. I loved the combat in TX and hearing that Ys was basically just that with a lighter story sounded sick. So, I got this game and played it and I highly enjoyed it. It's kinda odd though because I really liked it, and I think 100%'d everything in the journal too, but like... I don't know, there's not really much to discuss.

The way I described Ys VIII to people was 'my childhood idea of the perfect game'. It has elements of Kingdom Hearts in its battle system, a beautiful, fun setting on the Isle of Seiren, and you just run around looking for collectibles to make stuff or enhance weapons or whatnot. It's a really great time, and it makes you want to explore for everything because it's fun. Of course word of warning, I enjoy playing games on Easy mode, but I personally find enjoyment in just blasting through enemies in combat and I was able to do that in this game.

You've got your special attacks and can do your super charged move and everything. All that's here. There's no combo moves unfortunately (unless I somehow missed it) besides one that happens in a cutscene on one of the very last boss battles. That was one thing I liked in TX that was missing here. It was fun having Kou and Asuka do a super move together. But besides that, it's a great time. It almost sometimes even felt like Persona 5 Strikers where there's just hordes of ♥♥♥♥♥♥ enemies and you annihilate them with a few strikes. So satisfying.

The story is, in my opinion, one of the few things that drags this game down. Once you gain access to Dana, her parts in Eternia are ♥♥♥♥♥♥ boring, not gonna lie. I had no interest in her stuff whatsoever. Not to say Dana herself is a bad character or anything, I really liked her (and her friendships with Olga and Rastell), BUT... when you're doing lame stuff like finding the twins or whatever, it was like, eh. Imo they should have done this stuff first, then introduced Adol and the ship wreck and everything, because getting to explore and have fun on the island for 10 hours and then all of a sudden being taken to the kingdom to do menial ♥♥♥♥ really sucked.

Aside from that, I was a big fan of the other characters as well, with my favorite probably being Ricotta. Her curiosity and energy was very charming and a welcome addition to the lineup of already mismatched people. Laxia was a great character and her development over the game was subtle and kinda in the background, but still noticeable. Sahad was a great dad. Hummel was also really cool, and his willingness to play along with everything despite seeming like he didn't want to was really sweet. He deserves good things.

Aside from battle, I really enjoyed the fishing mini game. Catching that Ancient Abyss was no ♥♥♥♥♥♥ joke dawg. I heard that the fishing is largely similar across all Falcom titles. I don't know if that's true or not, but if it is then I'll be quite happy. Giving gifts to people was fun, you get a little scene and then you get stat bonuses and whatnot just like I remembered from TX. It's not really a mini game but the night exploration was really cool too. There was one part in particular where I gained like 6 levels quite quickly (which I imagine means I was underleveled as Falcom tends to keep that part of things in order). Speaking of, thank goodness this game also had the feature where people not in the party also level up. Top tier gaming feature. Wish it was around in the early-mid 2000s lol. (Maybe it was? It's in .hack but I don't know if that was added in for the re-release). Anyway, I'm getting off track.

It's a solid 7/10 game to me. The music is great, the gameplay is perfect, the characters are fun, it's really just the Dana parts that really drag it down to me, but the game was still 100% worth playing. Highly recommended. Now I'm excited to start playing Ys IX soon. :D

*Spoilers ahead*.

As of this writing I just finished the FemC route about 10 minutes ago. Not really giving it time to sink in, but then again, I finished my first run with Makoto on March 5th (which was completely unintentional but obviously, very fitting). So, I think I've settled my emotions for the most part with this game (aka I cried a lot after the Makoto run so I'm good now).

Persona 3 is an interesting game for sure. It's a great game. It's an interesting one for me to tackle personally, though. I feel like I should take a specific angle when talking about it.

Story: The story of Persona 3 is a fantastic one. It's intense, it's emotional, it's even funny sometimes, believe it or not. Persona 3 by far shines the brightest on its story, without question. However, when the story appears and some real stuff goes down, you've gotta really take it in and enjoy it, because it'll be another month or more before you get anything of substance. Seriously, from May to the end of October, there's pretty much ♥♥♥♥ all going on in this game. April is easy, it's the introduction month. After that, you're just doing social links (with horrible characters like Kenji), and waiting for the next full moon boss battle. It's ♥♥♥♥♥♥ brutal dude. The only really interesting thing that happens outside of that is when Aigis gets introduced. Her first words being 'Ju-Ju-Junpei' are hilarious and iconic imo. Anyway, the story really kicks into high gear in November, which is kind of insane because at that point there's only three months of game time left. Like I said the story, when it's there, is absolutely phenomenal, definitely the best of the modern 3 Persona games imo, but there's just not enough of it. This game could have been fleshed out so much more. I found it extremely disappointing. And the garbage social links with characters I couldn't possibly give any less of a ♥♥♥♥ about don't help things either. Overall, I'll give the story a 6/10, but it so easily could have been a 10/10 with just a bit more depth. Which brings me to my next topic.

Characters: Here's my big thing here - Shinjiro. Everybody loves Shinjiro. I see praise for him all the time, my brother loves him, so I was like, oh, okay. I guess he'll be a good character. Now note, I already knew he died rather quickly. Like P4, my brother informed me of most everything P3 first, because he played it first (and it's his favorite Persona game). This wasn't some shocking twist for me. What WAS shocking though, was Shinjiro being on screen for like, 10 minutes total before he dies. How the hell are you supposed to get invested in this character when he's barely on screen? It really felt strange to me. He needed WAY more time for his story to be told for his death to have any kind of emotional impact beyond 'he died, that's sad'. I know he was going through it over what happened with Ken's mom, and he felt bad about it, and this and that, but like, holy crap. He had nothing else going for him. Or so I thought. The FemC route gives Shinjiro much more screen time and you get to know him much better. To the point where I genuinely did like him as a character, like. He was fun to be around in that route. I'm glad it's there and I'm glad I held off on this review until after I played both protags otherwise I would have completely written off Shinji. It's a bit unfortunate that Makoto's route doesn't get this stuff (gotta have that fat kid social link instead), but like I said, I'm glad it's there whether it's FemC or Makoto.

As for the others, they were quite good. Makoto is basically the mid 2000s in human form, Kotone is fun and upbeat, Akihiko is an amazing character. Shout out to Liam O'Brien for the fantastic voice acting. He really brought Akihiko to life. Mitsuru is very good but also just kind of there for the most part. Yukari is funny sometimes, Junpei is annoying but also has the best individual story out of the main characters imo. His 'burn in hell' line during the Strega confrontation after Chidori revives him was really emotional. One of my favorite scenes. Kenjamin Amada is a terrible character with a bad voice actor. Didn't like anything that had to do with him. ♥♥♥♥♥ is also a terrible character with a bad voice actor. Ken and ♥♥♥♥♥ got way better VAs in Arena and such thankfully, but goodness gracious man. No emotion whatsoever. Aigis is one of my favorite characters from anything ever. She's just so good. Everything about her from the design to the story to the voice, etc. was handled perfectly. A flawless character imo. I think that covers most of the main characters...

Aside from those I mean, Strega was cool, I liked Takaya a lot. Nyx Avatar was ♥♥♥♥♥♥ crazy. Ryoji Mochizuki was literally just Yosuke so that was fun (much love to Yuri Lowenthal the absolute beast, top tier voice actor. Mans is in everything but he's always fantastic). Elizabeth is also a top tier character. I love her extremely chaotic energy. And I do hope she gets to finish her story some day and free Makoto's soul from the Great Seal. I'm not trying to 'go against the themes of the game' since I see people bring that up so much. Like literally just let homie chill in the afterlife. The game is about the inevitability of death and accepting it, and living life to the fullest while you can, not being stuck in a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ seal for all eternity. Anyways, yeah. I'll give a special mention to Akinari here. The best social link out of all currently available social links across all Persona games. And honestly while Akinari himself is really good and very emotional, I feel like it's the build up with him, and then meeting his mom in your final days that really gets me the most. His mom talking about him and about how you should show those closest to you that you love them, it really hits home. It's important and it's real.

Music: Not much to say here, I mean 10/10. Lotus Juice is a god and Yumi Kawamura is a goddess. Memories of You is one of those songs where the tears hit instantly when I hear it. Mass Destruction and Burn My Dread Last Battle are also masterpieces. The whole soundtrack is absolutely incredible. Persona 3 has by far the best soundtrack of the Persona series, and that's saying a lot because the others are phenomenal too. There is not one bad track imo in any of the Persona games, but for me, I just enjoy P3 the most. It's untouchable, and I always joke that Lotus Juice has really made my standards way too high for video game music. The extra tracks introduced for Kotone's route are glorious too. Overall just fantastic.

Controls/Battle: Very basic stuff here. It's what you'd expect. Classic JRPG behavior. Kinda boring not gonna lie. It is what it is. You scan, you hit weaknesses, you all out attack. It's the works, ya know. Sometimes you get ♥♥♥♥♥♥ by a mamudoon or something like that.

Graphics: Okay, now, this is where I must specify. For this Steam port specifically, the graphics are garbage. It's a shame too because I LOVE this style of graphics. It's (now) retro and nostalgic, I wasn't the biggest fan of P5's artstyle so to me, P3 and P4 are peak Persona graphics. But my god it got butchered in the downscaling for PSP, and then upscaling the downscaled PSP graphics. Just a total cluster♥♥♥♥. There's a specific point, the Kyoto trip, when they first arrive. The background looks like a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ 144p YouTube thumbnail jpeg from like 2007. Absolutely awful. It's a shame Atlus didn't put more love or care into this port. It's so smudgy and... oddly smooth. Just bad. Again the game itself has great graphics, this port does not.

Misc: I don't know what else to review. I feel like I've just about said all I wanted to say... I guess a final rating? 6/10 for the whole package. I can see why people praise this game so much, but it's also a product, and now, a victim of its time. It's on the cusp of greatness but didn't quite hit the mark.

*Spoilers ahead*

Alright, first things first, this is a long game. That's for sure, and that's even with me using the DLC Personas and whatnot from the get-go, and playing on easy. It still took me about 130 hours to finish the main story. And I say 'main story', because I didn't even get to do the whole compendium, or all of the confidants. It's crazy. I'll get to the length here in a second, but I want to note the quality of this port. It's fantastic. Even P4G had those slowdowns like with the All Out attacks, but I had no issues at all, ever, with P5R. High quality port here. I heard the P4G issues will be getting updated in January with the drop of P3P but we'll see, and that's besides the point anyway. This game runs flawlessly and it's beautiful.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder yes? 'Cause honestly the game overall looks lovely... I don't know how to explain this. I honestly don't really like the graphical style of this game. I suppose it's a cell shaded style yes? I'm not a fan, BUT, even still, this game looks really nice. Like I said I can't explain it. I don't like it, but I do. This is all personal preference, the graphics are high quality and that's what's important. You're not getting anything blurry or choppy or anything here. It's clean. The art style seems to be Atlus' new style seeing as Strikers/SH2/etc. all have the same look (for the most part anyway). Aside from just general looks though, the cut-ins, the special effects, stuff like Personas with fire, etc. all look really incredible in what I believe was their first true made-for-HD appearances. The menus can sometimes be hard on the eyes, but I don't have the best eyesight to begin with, so that's likely on me. :P

The story here is quite the journey. I'd like to make note here that this was the first Persona game that I went into completely blind, and it was pretty great as a result. Being able to notice little plot points myself, things being brought up from earlier in the game, etc. it felt pretty rewarding to pay attention and notice things like that. And that says a lot because I find it difficult to pay attention to even things I really like. The story kept my attention throughout and kept me wanting to play more (albeit these days, I can't binge-game like I did when I was younger. Not for lack of trying though lmao). Anyways, clocking in at around 130 hours for me, this is a huge ask and a huge time commitment, but very much worth it imo.

I'd never played the original non-Royal P5, so I can't really comment on when people talk about Kasumi being out of place, or Dr. Maruki's place in the story, etc. that all felt natural to me, so I guess Atlus did a decent enough job there. Now that I've brought him up, Dr. Maruki was truly a fantastic character. The late Billy Kametz was amazing in his voice acting here. Kasumi was good as well, although I felt her arc in the third semester kinda... I don't know, dragged for a bit. It wasn't bad, but I felt it kinda added to the length of the game and it wasn't truly required. This all could have been wrapped up quicker and sooner, BUT, we get the Maruki palace out of it, which was absolutely incredible, so it was well worth it in my opinion.

As for the other characters, I highly enjoyed them. Ryuji was a great bro to Ren, Ann was great in the initial role of showing strength to continue forward. Makoto was entertaining, and her running around with the book when trying to gather intel on the Phantom Thieves was a highlight of the game for me. Futaba and her story were pretty heartbreaking, and the aftermath was quite the story. I'll never forget when the Thieves said that she herself was the treasure in her palace. And of course 'make like a tree'. Haru was unexpectedly a hilarious character, I'm a big fan of her. I heard she's got more shine in Strikers so I'm looking forward to that. Yusuke was probably my favorite overall character though. He's hilarious and the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ deadpan expression he has half the time is incredible lmao. Top tier character. And of course, there's Morgana too.

Akechi kinda rules to me. Like yeah he's a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥ and all that, but damn. He was great. I loved the confidant ranks, I loved the 'I hate you', him going psychotic and then basically saying '♥♥♥♥ that' when Maruki tries to give everyone including him the happy life they desire. I thought he was perfect. Shout out to Robbie Daymond there, he really has range with his voice and I felt invested in everything Akechi said as a result. I could see him betraying the Thieves coming from a mile away as I'm sure everyone else did, but still. The twists and turns the story took afterwards were incredible, and even when it looked like he was dead after the Shido palace incident, he still came back (however ghostly it may have been). I don't know about him showing up during the true ending though. I'm not gonna lie, I kinda glanced at like the mid-body and just thought it was Shido for some reason lmao.

Speaking of though, the true ending was kinda meh. The entire ending was. I don't know what I was thinking was gonna happen though... I thought maybe Sumire or someone else was gonna die, but the game kinda just... ended... and that's all that really needed to happen honestly. The Thieves did what they needed to, and restored order. So naturally, they all moved on. It wasn't bad, it just kinda happened, and that's totally cool.

Combat in this game is pretty fun. I like the modernized take on turn-based combat, even though I personally do not like turn-based combat. Which is crazy because almost all of my favorite games use turn-based combat. I can overlook anything if the story is good enough I guess lol. Anyway, yeah. I'm not one to review this type of stuff. It's not my deal. I enjoy wrecking enemies don't get me wrong though. And I have fun in the first round of a big fight casting buffs and debuffs and stuff. So maybe I do like turn-based combat a bit? I just more find it tiring after a while. It gets boring. But that might be my own fault, I could try changing up my techniques and whatnot.

ALSO praise Jesus the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ ability for characters to level up without having to use them in battle. That ♥♥♥♥ is revolutionary to me. That and once you're strong enough just being able to run through enemies without having to fight them proper. Beautiful additions, couldn't have asked for anything better. When you talk about quality of life, you've gotta talk about those features. The future of JRPGs is looking up if this is the way things are headed.

Overall there's a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of stuff to do in this game even beyond just the confidants. The tool making, reading books, watching DVDs, part time jobs, etc. most of this serves the purpose of ranking up your social stats, or upgrading team abilities. The darts game is fun as hell, and I spent many a night playing that. I feel like the majority of it won't be necessary to use in NG+ though which is kind of a shame, but alas, they served their purpose.

I'll end this here, but... yeah. Hopefully this was coherent and someone was able to get something out of this. I highly recommend the game to everyone. The story is incredible and made me emotional multiple times (again though, big baby hours, I'll cry over anything). It's Persona at the end of the day, can't go wrong there.

*Spoilers ahead*

So, uh... I'm not sure where to start with this review. I suppose I'll start with what I imagine is the usual for this game. I started playing it after I finished Persona 4 Golden, as this game looked Persona-ish, and I wanted more of that type of game. I'd had my eye on this one for a while beforehand though, before I even got into Persona, just because it looked interesting, and I like JRPGs. So this summer I finally got it (part of a bundle), and I was off.

Needless to say, I went in expecting a somewhat Persona-esque experience (in my defense I'd never heard of Nihon Falcom before this and I'd never played any of their games before). And what I ended up getting was something pretty different (in my opinion, at least), and equally as incredible. Honestly, I was NOT expecting this game to be as amazing as it ended up being. I went in completely blind, and I think that really paid off because man, what an experience.

I guess now I should bring up some of the common talking points I've seen about this game: Dungeons - Yes, they can feel/look similar sometimes, and the enemies are definitely reused at multiple points, but like... I didn't care? It didn't really bother me at all. Dungeons for me were just about blasting through everything and finding all of the treasure chests. The gameplay was extremely fun to the point where it pretty much overshadowed everything else regarding dungeon design and enemies. To be fair though, I played this game (like everything else I play) on easy mode. I'm not here for the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. I just want to have a good time and enjoy the story.

Second: Story progression - I'm not gonna lie, the first two chapters (or at least I believe it's the first two) of this game are brutal. Not brutal as in difficult but brutal as in boring, but I suppose that's a necessary evil as they had to setup Kou's normal life and the beginning of him and Asuka working together. However, once the chapter with the God app starts, it REALLY starts to pick up, and becomes extremely interesting from there on. Legitimately, I almost stopped playing because the first two chapters just weren't doing it for me, but once you encounter Yuuki, it's game on. After that is the Shio chapter which is also awesome (shout out to Shio who might be my favorite character of the group), and it just keeps getting better. So definitely, stick with it. I promise it's worth it.

Third: Normal ending/true ending/after story - So, this one is kinda tough, because I do love a happy ending (which is what the after story and true ending provide, HOWEVER... I agree with what I've seen people say, about the normal ending being a beautiful bittersweet ending, because that's what it was. I just feel like after going through the whole game, and Kou trying so hard and being so determined, for him to 'win' but not truly win in the end, it just felt... real, I guess. The Nine Tails battle and everything to restore Shiori and undo the lie and all of that kind of feels like a cop-out in a way. Like don't get me wrong, I still loved it, and I absolutely cried (I am an emotional boy I cry over everything, it seems) seeing Kou and Shiori reunited, but... that normal ending kind of felt perfect to me, again, in a bittersweet way.

I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting, but that's the gist of what I wanted to address. As for everything else:

Gameplay - Loved it, was extremely fun. I'm not the biggest fan of turn-based combat, so this was extremely refreshing to me. I also had fun getting upgrades and switching out cores and whatnot. Always looked forward to upgrades, and truthfully, sometimes I went back to re-do dungeons just because they were fun. I loved blasting through everything and using the various special attacks and such.

Music - Very, very good. Wasn't expecting the music to be as good as it was either. I noticed after a while that dungeons would re-use tracks and whatnot, but again, didn't bother me in the slightest because most of the music was delicious. My personal favorites however were Bravely Storm, and Earnestly Advance. Two absolute ♥♥♥♥♥♥ bangers dude.

Characters/Friendship Episodes - I really grew to love the characters. Shio was my favorite but they all stood out in their own ways and it was very nice to see. Sora was fantastic (and a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ tank in battle too), Yuuki was fun, Asuka and Kou of course were great, Rion was the first character to make me laugh (when she learned Kou wasn't a fan of SPiKA lmao). Even the non-main cast all stood out and were memorable. I really liked Kyouka, I really didn't like Tomoaki, and I found Towa to be pretty charming. Friendship Episodes honestly didn't feel all that important to me. Like obviously I still did them, but they weren't as meaningful as I thought they were gonna be. This might be my only true disappointment with the game overall.

Some extra notes, the dialogue does get a bit repetitive at times, especially towards the end when the whole XRC is pumping themselves up before going through a dungeon, but I mean, it's not that bad. At least it's positivity ya know. Also the lack of English voice acting also didn't bother me in the slightest. I thought it would, but it really didn't at all. I still connected with all the characters all the same. Emotions still come through regardless of language and this cast was ♥♥♥♥♥♥ fantastic at that.

So yeah, that's my review. This game is definitely special to me now, because wow. It really blew me away when I was least expecting it. 10/10 even with its few flaws. A great experience that I highly recommend if you like JRPGs (or anime? I don't really watch anime so I can't say). Here's to hoping there'll be a sequel at some point. Even if not, I'll definitely be hitting up this game for a NG+ run some day, and I'll be checking out more from Nihon Falcom.

*Spoilers ahead*

So, in September of 2021, my brother told me he started playing a game called Persona 4, and every day after he'd tell me what he was doing in the game and how the story was going down. He was never one into JRPGs, so when I watched him play and saw what it was, I was pretty shocked, but also captivated myself. I didn't want to play it myself, because I enjoyed my brother's daily updates, it was always something I looked forward to after coming home from work. And seeing my brother happy, makes me happy, so I already loved this game just for that alone.

As he got deeper into it and told me more, there were certain things that I figured would happen, such as the Nanako kidnapping. I'm sure everyone saw that coming as soon as the dynamic with her and Narukami was developed. He told me about Adachi, he told me about the cross dressing event, he told me pretty much everything. He then played P3 and from there, we together played Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, which would be my first Persona game of any kind (although obviously not a main series title). He gave me the knowledge to understand the characters and their stories, and I was excited to get into it.

After a while though, I decided to play P4G myself. I'd put it off despite my brother urging me to play it, because I figured, y'know, I know everything already. What difference is playing the game for myself gonna make? Turns out, playing the game was one of the best decisions I could have made. Not only did I play it, but I played it twice in a row.

Let me tell you right now. Even if you know the true culprit, even if you've had the whole story spoiled for you in some fashion over the years, you should still absolutely 100% play this game. It still got every possible emotion out of me, even on the second playthrough. I laughed, I cried (a lot), it sometimes even made me think about myself, and my relationships with certain people. The story is that incredible. It has quickly shot up my favorite games of all time list (RE4 and FFIX are my others, for reference). I believe it takes a truly great game to be able to hook someone who already knew most of the big details of the story. And this game is easily capable of that.

Now, as for combat, I'm not the type of person to go in looking for a challenge. I play most games on whatever the easiest setting is, so on my first playthrough, I played on Very Easy. I had a ton of fun blasting through everything, and I enjoyed exploiting enemy weaknesses and whatnot. My goal on my first run was to enjoy the story though. On my second run, I decided to try normal mode, and found it was a good level of challenging, but not wanting to rage quit after a boss battle or anything like that. My moves mattered more, and I actually had to use buffs and debuffs. It was fun.

I want to make a specific note of the Margaret fight, because that was ♥♥♥♥♥♥ crazy. Without a doubt the toughest fight in the game, and weirdly, the most exciting as a result. It took me a decent chunk of time, but it felt well worth it once I defeated her. And it's funny because right after her, I did a Reaper fight and then Izanami, and both were super easy in comparison.

My second run was definitely a 100% run that I wanted to do to put a cap on P4 for now. All social links, all quests, 100% compendium, etc. it was a great run.

So, overall, I highly recommend this game. I will say some parts of it have aged badly, like the reactions to the cross dressing event. I know 2008 was a different time and people weren't as accepting of such things as now, but still. That and the reactions to Kanji (who is definitely my favorite character) possibly being into guys. Like I said, 2008, different time, but it could have been shown in a more positive light. I say 'more' positive since the team does come around on Kanji eventually, and accept him for who he is.

Anyways, yeah, that's my review. I wanted to share the story of my brother getting me into Persona. I'm most happy because now Persona is something else for me and my brother to bond over. Can't wait to play P3P eventually. :D

trash

no

is good

yes it's a good game the second best game of all time

It's fun and better optimized than 2K18 was imo. The roster is great and Universe Mode is really fun with what you can do. There's little changes I like, such as being able to switch between playing as different characters mid-game. It's the best 2K game yet, but still largely the same as 2K17 and 2K18.