On Persona 3 and 4

So it was around 2007 or so when Persona 3 (the original not FES or Portable) was a new thing. But I was completely unaware of ATLUS or the MegaTen franchise as a whole until a friend of mine told me about it and I was intrigued so I got it based solely on his recommendation. I had played plenty of RPGs before that point in time but the intro was unlike anything I had seen before as was the general setting, combat, soundtrack, etc. I got hooked on it pretty quickly and later beat it with not much delay. Some enjoyable memories were learning what skills did and looking at the compendium entries with the Velvet Room music playing in the background. I remember beating the final boss as Surt as my main persona but he didn't have a too impressive skillset and I pretty much spammed Ragnarok for most of it. My team was Aigis, Yukari and Junpei I think. Good times. I even later got FES but I never played Portable and don't really plan on doing so.

And after FES was Persona 4. There was some special pre-order thing going on with half of the whole thing being split in half or something. I got the second half of the soundtrack, artbook and teddie plushie that stares with those soulless eyes. My friend got the other stuff. I obsessed over P4 as well for some time but only played through it twice; once for the normal ending and again for the true ending then I didn't really touch it much after that. I guess despite being hyped for it at the time it didn't leave as strong as impression on me probably since it was just more of the same albeit improved in certain areas.

After Persona 4 there was a point where I realized just how big the MegaTen franchise truly was. My next game was Strange Journey (although I didn't get into that one right way. Not until playing Etrian Odyssey 3 anyway.) and then Nocturne, Raidou vs the Soulless Army... Truly I felt and comprehended the hunger
Anyway Persona 4 would explode in popularity and with that the arrival of Persona 4 Arena and Persona 4 Golden. At the time I was completely disinterested in both of these titles and was fighting futile battle atop the Mt. Atlus US Forums over the PSP port of Eternal Punishment. "Surely they won't neglect to localize a Persona game in this day and age?". Oh how naive I was.

These days I have around 13 MegaTen titles. So what do I think of Persona 3 and 4 now? Well Persona 3 is good. Persona 4 though I feel has more praise than it deserves. Not that I don't like it but it's a bit much and it's overstayed it's welcome.  I'm interested in Persona Q and Arena 2. It's a shame there's no Persona 1 or 2 characters in either game since there's some cool characters in those games. Oh well. I have some interest in a Vita but not so much for Golden or Dancing all night. All I really want out of Persona 5 is basically for it to stand apart from the other games. Having a new cast unrelated to Persona 3 and 4 crew and changing up or removing the calendar and social link systems are also good.

One last thing I noticed sort of recently that's kind of...weird and unrelated is the portraits in Persona 4 in comparison to Persona 3 and also Persona 2

seriously what is up with that?

In case you're not seeing it I mean how most of the Persona 4 characters have the same pose for all their expressions. Also Yukiko and Rise have this thing where both of their arms are stuck to the sides of their body at all times. Naoto escaped this fate but only half way. Poor girl.

Oh right I had a blog

Been awhile huh? Well things have been pretty quiet mostly with not much going on. I got around to playing Dragon Warrior 1&2 for the Gameboy Color. Dragon Warrior 1 was pretty simple but I wasn't really expecting otherwise from a pretty old game. The second game is pretty similar but you instead have multiple party members instead of having to solo everything also more than one enemy to fight at once too. The second game was quite harder espesically the penultimate dungeon and pretty much everything after that, except the final dungeon which was strangely simple compared to the final dungeon of the first game. The final boss was also more brutal too with him being able to wipe you out pretty quickly. Both games were pretty good overall although I got kinda lost after I got the boat in the second game.

I still check on my Animal Crossing village every so often but nearly as much as I did when the game first came out.

I picked up Radiant Historia after hearing some good things about it and yeah it's pretty good. The time traveling mechanic is pretty great. I like the story so far too.

I might ask for a PS3 for Christmas. Not sure what games to get with it though

That's all I got! See ya next year!

Tales of the Abyss and King Abaddon stuff

So I recently beat Tales of the Abyss. I ended up with something like 2300 Grade at the end of it. The one I didn't care for was how much back-tracking there was. It got pretty out of hand in the latter half of the game but it was pretty enjoyable overall.

I'm nearing the end of Raidou Kuzunoha vs King Abaddon. Currently at Chapter 5. I've been doing mostly side stuff. I haven't found the will to play it some more lately. The combat is an improvement for sure but I don't really like the MAG system and how reliant it is on you hitting weaknesses. If you can't hit a weakness then your MAG runs out pretty quickly and no MAG means no healing or elemental attacks which makes fights harder than they need to be. Luckily almost every boss/enemy has a weakness. It's just a matter of randomly picking except for some obvious ones like Jack Frost and Pyro Jack. They removed the elemental bullets from the last game. Keeping them would've been a reliable way to gain MAG without having to use skills to get some back.But at least you have infinite bullets.

The presentation is kind of lacking compared to Raidou Kuzunoha vs The Soulless Army; the previous Devil Summoner game I mentioned just before. There's these neat style of cutscenes in Soulless Army that are in-engine which have plenty of character. I didn't really think much about it when I first played through it but when I started playing King Abaddon their absence stuck out to me. One thing that I really don't like is how much music it reuses. I mean I'm not expecting a brand new soundtrack but it seems a bit excessive with how much is re-used. Some themes like for the Nameless Shrine, Detective agency are ok. But they did really need to reuse the final dungeon theme from the last game for alot of the dungeons? Or reusing the same title theme? I didn't care for the remix of the town theme. Some of the things they removed or added seem kind of strange.

In Soulless Army you could fuse a demon with your sword which would power it up and let you gain resistance to one of several types of damage (Physical, Fire, Ice, Wind , Electric, Death, Mind). And a stat boost. It was a nice way to get rid of a demon you didn't really want without outright getting rid of it. But now you have to get materials and pay money. The materials you get from demons (Pyro Steel, Bronze, Silver, etc) or side quests. There's 3 "kinds" of swords. Axe, Lance and Blade. Demons have some unique skills that'll require one of three types. It seems more complicated than it needs to be. You can do a special attack with them and each type is unique. Blades just hit everything around you, Axes make you leap into the air and slam the ground with the Axe or just stab rapidly with the Lance Unfortunately using these eats up MAG so you can't really use them too much. There's this weird thing with the Lance types where if you hit the button to the special attack once it'll eat up MAG so you have to rapidly press it for the full animation. There's also the lack of sacrificial fusion which is weird (Lances' special attack is the weakest too which is lame)  

Case Files are now just side quests whereas they just let you have a brief summary of the previous episode. Alot of them require you to deliver items but some of those require you to go out of your way to do things like take a photo of something or get something that you can only get in a certain place (as opposed to just happening to having the item on you by the time the case and clearing it there.)The other kind just require you to go to some place and typically fight a demon. These are pretty unique usually. Getting Case Files usually requires you to go out of your way to get them in other words talking to everyone. Even demons. You can get some nice stuff from clearing Case Files but they're just sort of there. It's a way to add extra hours to the game I guess.

 The last odd thing is the inclusion of alignments. The is the first Devil Summoner game to have them and they're generally stuck in the mainline series. It's not really annoying or good or anything. It's just...there. You know when you're asked an alignment question whenever the control vibrates a little.

 So King Abaddon is a good game but I like the previous Devil Summoner game more even though the combat is more clunky

No fancy pictures for you. Bye!

August stuff and progress on games

So I finally beat Digital Devil Saga 2 after being occupied with Shin Megami Tensei IV which I beat before going back to DDS2 (got the neutral ending!). I wanted to beat the last bonus boss that I could before moving on to other games which in this case was Seth.

The biggest dangers were Pain since that has a pretty high critical chance and when he takes someone out of the party. He seems to have pretty good agility since I could barely hit him with no agility buffs/debuffs. Like several bosses he likes to remove them if you go to the max buff/debuff limit.

I proceeded to pretty much wreck the final boss. He hit the party for a rather underwhelming amount of damage so it wasn't too bad. The final boss in the first DDS game was more of a threat. But the second game ended on a happy note so it's all well and good.

So now what MegaTen game I have next to do is Raidou Kuzunoha vs King Abaddon. The sequel to the first Raidou game; vs The Soulless Army.

I recently finished the first chapter (it took me awhile to get through that. Pretty lengthy for a first chapter I thought.) and just started the second chapter. The combat is an improvement for sure but I'm not really sure I care for MAG being the resource all the special moves as opposed to all the demons just having MP. Still pretty fun regardless.

I got back into the first Etrian Odyssey and I previously decided to ditch my Protector for a Dark Hunter to mix things up from a usual party set-up. Took awhile to get the dark hunter to get up to speed. I used the protector to help speed things along and the protector wound up gaining some levels out of the deal.

I've made some progress on Tales of the Abyss. Probably somewhat close to that half way mark? Resident Evil Revelations has also seen some progress. I think I'm near the end of it and the last couple of chapters sort of zoomed right by. I've haven't been plating New Leaf much though. I've kinda lost interest with it but I still play it for an hour or two every other day or so.

Later!

Recent things

Hey guys. Thought I'd drop in after a fairly long absence. Shin Megami Tensei IV has been eating my life as it is. That game is pretty good stuff. Though I get the feeling I have quite a ways yet to go still.

I made some progress in Digital Devil Saga 2. Namely I beat some of the optional bosses.

Vishnu was a tricky fight. It's a shame there isn't a skill like Pierce like there was in Nocturne which would let me get around the physical absorb affinity of both Vishnu and Shiva so Seraph was just for support for both fights. Shiva was more simple once you figure you he doesn't like buffs or debuffs too much and you need immunity to bind on everyone. It sure went faster than the Vishnu fight.

In order to fight both Shiva and Vishnu you need special items from rare enemies called Parvati and Narasimha. Narasimha was kind enough to give me to the item to fight Vishnu pretty early on while just exploring the Sun normally. Parvati wasn't quite the same. It took quite alot more effort to get what I needed for  the Shiva battle and I gained alot of levels as a result. Everyone advanced quite in bit in the mantra grid as a result. Espesically with Cielo and Gale. 

I've made some progress in other games in Tales of the Abyss but it hasn't been too much. I pretty much made it rich in the stalk market in Animal Crossing new leaf so I was able to max out my house without much issue. Villagers haven't been giving me too many project ideas though and since i got the gold watering can my play sessions have waned quite a bit. 

Ya got me

Until next time

Digital Devil Saga 2 and other stuff

So lately I've come pretty close to the end of Digital Devil Saga 2 but instead of just fighting the final boss, I decided to try beating all the extra bosses first except Satan (He's hard mode only and I decided to save hard mode for new game plus.) I beat Jack Frost who is actually an optional boss in this game whereas in the first game he was just a random enemy you fought in about halfway in or so. You can see how that fight went  below

I did this fight the hard way; you're supposed to just use Ice Drain and hit him with fire attacks which makes things easier than how I did it. His most dangerous move is Breath. It gets especially nasty if it hits one person twice which it does sometimes and if you don't do something about the physical attacks that come after then the frozen person is pretty certain to die.  You can see how that messes me up fairly early on in the video (Sorry Cielo!). His (apparent) lack of any sort of fire shield means you can just fire skills on him without much fear. Using Physical skills can be tricky since they consume HP which makes it a gamble to use them. 

Not really the most graceful battle but I won. The Magatama item I got was the most powerful bullet in the game with a power of 200 and the Pass Ring lets the holder pass their turn without consuming half of a press turn. Basically the more icons you have the more you can do in a turn and you start with one per person in your party. Doing well in battle will make your actions consume just "half" of an icon and you can get up to double the amount of actions that you start with.

As far as my characters are concerned...

I'm having Seraph focus on on magic and vitality for the extra magic/physical defense since strength is as high as it'll go and I don't think I need to increase my agility any more. As for the mantra board...

I have the majority of the mantra mastered other than some mantra that costs a ton of money. There's a nice physical mantra I can get after I master Amatsukami though it's really pricey. After that I'm not really sure what to go for next. Maybe finish the Hama mantras but Seraph is set and doesn't need too much more.

Gale is doing pretty well especially since he obtained the passive Elec Resist skill. He's been one of my main party members in both this game and in the previous Digital Devil Saga game. His stats make him pretty versatile so he can use magic or physical attacks pretty well. 

At the beginning of the final dungeon Gale gets Pyriphlegethon ; a powerful fire attack that hits all enemies. At the time I didn't have any passives that could boost the skills' power. So now I'm having Gale go down the fire skill path for those. The fire skills on that route will be alot less expensive to use than Pyriphlegethon too although not quite as powerful. After that I might get him some more debuffs since he doesn't quite have all the ones I'd like him to have.

Cielo has been pretty great. His weakness to ailments can be hindrance but sometimes it's a blessing that he doesn't have a elemental weakness. Luckily at the end of the ailment mantra line is Null Ailment which solves that problem and has the added bonus of making the enemy lose press turns (two since that's the penalty of using something the someone is immune to)

Since Cielo has Null Ailment I decide to finally get him the the penultimate mantra of the electric skill path. Other than that I should probably get him mind charge for extra damage and some almighty skills. Those kind of skills can't be resisted or blocked in most cases so it's pretty handy.

When you get Argilla in the Sun she'll be behind everyone as far as Mantra goes due to certain events in the story. But she's been catching up pretty well now.

Her skills are good. I dont really bother giving her physical attacks (although she isn't half bad at using them) She has Force Resist and Mind Charge and with her high magic she hits pretty hard. I guess I could get her other elements or more support skills.

You don't actually get Heat until the very last dungeon assuming that you choose the correct options throughout the story of both games. His mantra board is the same as Roland's. Unfortunately you can only have Heat or Roland; not both.

Like with Argilla, due to events in the story he's behind the other characters in Mantra so he has pretty weak skills. I don't think I'll be able to get him up to par in time for the last boss but maybe he will. I'm trying to get him alot of Mantra mastered for new game plus. Currently he's going for Physical attack skills

So what's next for me is beating Vishnu, Seth and Shiva then I'll take on the final boss. Vishnu has proven to be an interesting fight so far. I'll upload a video of that when I beat him.

I've gotten a couple of new games recently which are the 3DS version of Tales of the Abyss, Resident Evil Revelations (also 3DS version) and Xenosaga episode 1. Kind of a shame I can't capture 3DS footage but that stuff is expensive.

I guess I lied about what I said in the first blog post.

Oh well!

Gamebridge

So yesterday was my birthday and it was a pretty mellow day. My present was something I've been wanting for awhile; the Game Bridge. With it I can record footage from my older game consoles.

Unforunately the device itself is pretty old so it doesn't work on my 64 bit version of Windows 7 (which is installed on my main computer that has 2 monitors) unless I can find a work around for that. But for now it works with my laptop fine although I have to watch for it getting too hot

I'll probably post things like screenshots using it from time to time and possibly videos too. Here's a test video I made with gamebridge last night.

Until next time

My first week of Animal Crossing: New Leaf

So I've played the Animal Crossing series before (specifically the original GameCube and DS game) and I enjoyed them quite a bit so I got the new one and since New Leaf can take screenshots I thought I'd take advantage of it and share the screenshoots  I named my character Serph from the Digital Devil Saga games. I also named the town Junkyard since that's the area where the first Digital Devil Saga game takes place.

Serph

There wasn't really a big reason why I wanted to do this but I figured it might be kind of fun. And it gives me an excuse to send letters to my villagers saying things like

"Rend. Slaughter. Devour your enemies. There is no other way to survive. You cannot escape your hunger."

 which doesn't get much of a reaction from the villagers unfortunately but it still amuses me a little.

My town so far is doing pretty well. I have a couple of projects done, just got first place in the bug catching contest today and have a bunch of fruit trees all over town. The gardening shop just opened up so now I finally have an axe. 

Unfortunately I couldn't start up any new town projects for the day since that event was going on. 

I'm probably going to make another bridge next. I already have two but since my town has a sort of U shape to it another bridge will help get around easier. My house is decently sized so I don't think I'll be paying that off for awhile. 

 And so it begins

Yeah my character doesn't look anything like Serph yet but I'll be able to change that eventually. Your face and gender are picked by questions in the beginning and you can also pick one of four maps that determine how your town will be shaped which is something I really liked as that was never something you could have any control over before.

You'll need to take a photo for this to access online.

Isabelle sure is full of pep..

There isn't much to do on the first day of the game. Tom Nook gives you a tent which becomes your house the next day if you pay off the 10,000 bells he asks of you initially. Though the house isn't bigger than tent but you can expand that as per usual  One thing I liked is that you can place your practically wherever you want to put it unlike previous games where it was in one set location. Isabelle can give you a free tool and some foreign fruit if you talk to her enough times. But other than that you pretty much just want to get familiarized with the game and start expanding the museum which is what I did. I planted the fruit I got from Isabelle (Which were 3 oranges) so they would grow into tress. And that pretty much ended by first day. 

And many more payments yet to come!

The second day has you increasing your approval rating to 100% before you can start making projects of any kind. And it's not particularly easy to get the rating that high. You pretty much have to do busy stuff around town like helping villagers, watering plants, cleaning trash you get from fishing, plucking weeds, etc. I was stuck at 97% by the end of the day. I was able to increase my rating a bit by picking some flowers and re-arranging them and watering them again but it wasn't enough and all my other ways of increases were gone for the day. I also got another thing to pay off for the house but it was just some 30,000 bells which isn't too bad.

And I was also able to snag myself a prize before the day was over.

 Tarantula's a special bug that'll attack you if you have a net ( being attacked just boots you to your house but you lose you shot at catching the tarantula) so catching them is a tricky thing. There are also scorpions which I haven't seen yet that act in the same way. I was happy to get this on just my second day since I had a hard time getting one in Wild World. After donating it to the museum my second day officially ended

The third day I was finally able to get that 100% rating (though I was on 99% for awhile..) though I still wasn't able to build anything as the request needed processing. Isabelle said that the process would take a day or possibly days. Fortunately it only took until the next day to get it done. Tortimer showed up and told me that he'd could arranged for a boat that comes from where he's currently

 retired but the boat owner won't show up at the docks until the next day.

The house debt was near 100,000 bells this time. But I was more interested in getting a new bridge which was more expensive but certainly is more of a priority. Getting the bridge paid off was difficult but I had a little help near the end thanks to someone who visited my town (the villagers don't really contribute much at all.). Like with houses projects need until the next day to be made. At this point I've taken more of an interest in raising flowers so I can have a nicer looking town. And so ends the third day

On the fourth day I was approved and finally able to get working on projects.  But I was more interested in getting a new bridge which was more expensive but certainly is more of a priority than working on my house since my village has a U-ish shaped river and my town only had one bridge. Getting the bridge paid off was a bit hard but I had a little help near the end thanks to someone who visited my town (the villagers don't really contribute much at all.). Like with houses, town projects need until the next day to be made.

Gotta love that Thousand Year Door reference

On the way to the dock I ran into Gulliver. Helping him figure out where he needs to get to will you a rare item later. He was on his way to Spain this time. I'm sure I'll see him on my beach again sooner or later. I went to the Island which can get you some nice insects and fish. You can also do mini games which will get you medals. I really wanted was with the Swim suit since owning one will let you swim around your town though I wasn't able to get enough medals on that day. There are some things you can get from underwater that can be donated. I also planted plenty of new fruit trees with the fruit I got from the island.

Later I went there again with a friend.

And we had our share of fun with the mini games and we finally did get that swim suit. Though it took awhile to be able to afford it. After all that was all said and done I bumped into this guy and got a nice badge for it with plenty of space for more badges.

A rather fitting name with how much I fish.

You can look at the badges on your TPC. They're sort of like milestones. Other people can look at them if you play with them online too as a way to show off. It's a nice little bonus.

I'd guess there are 75% and 100% badges you can get later too.

Trying to swim when not at a beach makes your character do a funny animation.
You can also jump off the dock or a cliff into the ocean which is pretty great.

There wasn't much else to do after that so that was the end of things.

The next day I got a request from Gruff to make a zen bell. Unfortunately I had a yellow bench going on so I wasn't able to get around to that at the time. There wasn't too much going on for most of the day but since the yellow bench was cheap I was able to pay for it pretty quickly.

Yeah that didn't end too well

There wasn't too much going on other than the usual bug hunting/fishing for the museum. I did get a new badge though.

I also did go to the Island some more and did some new mini-games that I couldn't do last time with some other people who I hadn't played with before.

Roger you so crazy

Yet another badge

On the 6th day was the bug hunting contest. While I was catching bugs I came across a peculiar sight.

I had no idea what he was trying to do there so I swam there to question him. (Swimming is the only way to get to that little disconnected beach.)

Whatever you say

I wasn't satisfied with his answer so I got a friend to question him further

No dice. We decided to seal him off from the rest of the town for their safety.

Despite our precautions he somehow made it back to town. He must have had a swim suit stashed on him somewhere. Anyway I won although Greta wasn't too far behind.  I caught three bugs for the contest. One was around 75ish points. the 2nd was 97 points and the last beat my second by exactly one point. Greta had 86 or so points. When you beat previous records you get extra items. I got a carpet and some furniture.

Hurray!

Better luck next time

On the last day of the week I was finally able to celebrate the completetion of zen bell. I paid it off on the day of the contest but because the contest was going on I couldn't do any mayor stuff.

Lolly has been the only villager to celebrate my projects so far.

 I was diving around and collecting stuff and this guy sneaks behind me and wants my scallop. I didn't need it for bells or the museum so I gave it to him and he gave me his wisdom.

He did give me a telescope for it so that was pretty nice. And with not much else to do I went to a friend's town. He has some rather interesting locals.

Very interesting indeed. I got a third bridge done that day and you can only have three of them but I'm happy with where they all are. This marks the end of the first week. I probably won't do a weekly thing for AC:NL and just stick to posting whatever strikes my interest. Future blog posts will probably not be nearly this big.

Until next time.