Recent reviews by magmaslug

One of a kind.

It's like the first game, but all of the good is taken out, all of the bad is ignored, and then some more bad and a bit annoying is grafted on. If all you want is an underwater house builder, then go ahead. If you want more of the first game, then this isn't it.

The story has potential, but is completely ruined by the characters. There are 2 scientists from 2 different species. Great setup right? Yes, but here they only talk in 5th grade pseudophilosophy. The alien is all: "LOL human bad." and the human just says some ego stroking nonsense and that' it.

Too many caves, not enough open water.

PREAMBLE:
I Don't think I can judge this game fairly. I Really did not like persona 5, neither it's main story or it's characters. All the problems I had with 5 are pretty much absent here. They don't gripe about adults every 5 minutes, they don't complain about society every 2 minutes and they also don't talk about how much better they are than everybody every second. I don't know if this game is great or if my low expectations after P5 make it seem great, but I do know that I want the combat and the writers back for Persona 6.

GAMEPLAY:
Unlike P5, this game has active real-time combat as opposed to turn based combat. P5 tried to ad flair and look cool but it fell flat because the characters ended up just standing still and taking turns in combat. The sense of progression and picking the right persona for the job is still here, but with combat that seems to fit the story better. You have basic attacks. You have special persona attacks you can weave in with the basic attacks, and you have your normal persona abilities you know from the mainline series separate from that. This is what persona 5 tried and failed to make you feel, strong and powerful in the face of an army. There are also no more punishments and subsequent incentives to finish a jail in one day. No more time management YAY :D Time management was my biggest gripe with P3-P5, but it's not here.

STORY:
Do you want to go on a cross country summer tip with your friends? me too :,( This is just a group of friends doing exactly that, kinda. Saying it's a rehash of P5's story would be a disservice, but it really does feel like the writers saw the potential in it's story and rebuilt it from the ground up. No more cartoonishly evil villains. All of your "enemies" are all shown to have suffered greatly and as a result their desires have been twisted. In P5 they were "twisted" because the story demanded it. No more "I know whats best for society" main-characters. In P5 they were pretty much just like the main villain, but were never called out on it or made to think about it.
The main "villain" this time is actually just the Phantom thieves, but on a much larger scale. He points out that they can't help everyone, that even now while they are talking people are suffering. He want's to become a hero for everyone, to help everyone the phantom thieves can't. His way of doing it is to basically brainwash people, and remove freedom entirely (just like the phantom thieves can be argued are doing to their targets) and when it is pointed out to him that he is basically erasing peoples humanity and becoming like the figure who traumatized him he relents. I am a bit sad that no one pointed out to him that he was punishing the innocent majority for crimes committed by the guilty minority, especially since there was a cop there, but compared to P5 it is flawless.
The characters never stop interacting with each other, so it really does feel like a friends group out on a trip. P5 did little to make them actually seem like friends that would hang out outside of Phantom thieves business, and while this does little to remedy that, it does pair all of them off to some degree. So while they may not keep contact with everyone, they will at least keep in contact with someone. I can see Ryuji and Yuskuke, Futaba and Yusuke, Ryuji and Ann, Makoto and Haru. Just like a real friends group, some of them seem to hit it off better than others. This felt lacking in P5, but there were at least more contained single stories I suppose.

MUSIC:
Yeah, it's pretty good. Some remixes from P5 to make them fit better with the real-time action combat. The jails all have personal BGM as you are walking around just like P5. The first jail has an absolute banger of a track, while the others do their job of building atmosphere well enough. The last one can be argued is alright. The battle music really gets the blood pumping and get you ready for a fight. It makes what happens on screen just feel that more sick. If you bought the battle tracks from the other persona games as well, then you get a good amount of music to make sure you never really tire of any one of them.

FINAL RATING:
Standing on it's own: ?/10
Compared to P5: 11/10

4 hours to beat the game for me, but there are some hidden bosses and whatnot to find, so you can get more out of it. It's like hotline Miami, but 2D, with a Katana, and time powers. Fun little game

Do you like time management? Because that is almost all this game is. Everything is tied to time. Even what you can buy and when. you didn't do all these minuscule things in the right order or answer correctly in this "RPG" Even though there is no way you could ever know unless you data mined the game. Well now you lost content forever unless you start a new game + and have to go through everything again just to see the small or big (no way for you to know unless you follow a guide but if you do that you might as well just watch a play through) thing.

It's just time managing my spreadsheet the game. There is no RPG about this. If you don't answer correctly, then you won't get bonuses or content. might as well follow a guide, but then you are not playing the game, so might as well watch a play through.

After playing 1 and 2, this was just too jarring. No matter the game I just hate having a tight time schedule. This game does exactly what I hate. Every single day, which is 2-5 minutes irl is a point of no return. It's awful. It's a game that is designed to have a garbage play through before you can have the awesome one. It just rubs me the wrong way

TLDR: Just watch a play through.

If you like turn based combat, then you will probably like this as well

Poor mouse controls with dead zones. Awful dialogue. No NPC's? Not in the first couple of missions in multiplayer, so it feels like only 4 people are fighting for earth.

If you know your specs and are somewhat knowledgeable about computer parts, you will know wheter or not this will work for you. If you don't have most of the graphics settings, especialy the texture quality on it's highest setting with high FPS, then don't get this. Also Anti Aliasing is what drained my FPS, have that on it's lowest setting.

This game feels more like a puzzle solver than an RPG. Not my kind of game.

There is no Farming. If you make some bad choices with your "level ups" you might just not make it. Combat is mostly trial and error, but you don't even know if your character is even able to handle the situation. In the end, a lot of wasted time.

This is the best modern call of duty I have played! I don't understand why they are selling it as Fallout 4 though.