Evil Genius

Bought the GamePro today and to my rejoice read there that Shin Megami Tensai - Persona 3 is out in Europe. Although my PS2 does nothing but collect dust now (damn Sony for not making PS2-compatible PS3s anymore ) I'm gonna dust it off just for that game. The magazine says the game is like Neon Genesis Evangelion meets Final Fantasy, which sounds so awesome I'm probably gonna explode.

Any game where you put a gun to your head and pull the trigger to summon your fighting guarding is awesome in my book!

I played Persona 3 and it's kind of like a cross between a Japanese dating sim and an RPG, the storey is cool and the style is good it's a great RPG with a very unique feel and the hole dating sim thing acutely adds to the story. I'm currently waiting for persona- res to come out and persona 4 has been announced in japen (for ps2) so there is still a reason not to throw your old console out.

So have any of you bought army of two? I seriously want to get it so me and my friend can play it next time I'm out of the army, it seems like a pretty awesome game.

The Prince wrote:Just curious. But how did you come to be known as King of the Elves?

I assume its some inside joke from days gone by. Though nothing to be ashamed of.....Just look at King Hunibufuu.

Its good to be king!

Oh, no probelm, thanks for asking. Starnum is my original and main role-playing character. That's why I said he's got a ton of experience levels. Starnum isn't the king of all elves, that would still be Oberon, or whoever you want for whatever setting. Starnum is just a high-born elf, who happens to be a king of a country as well. If you have any other questions about the character, feel free to PM me.

Yay Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 arrived today, can't wait to get home from work to try it out.

Enjoy it? That's the understatement of the year. It's probably the best, and purest, RPG I've played since ages (and since Morrowind on the PC which I played for almost 2 years with all the available mods and stuff you could do).

While I have no clue yet why the things in the story are happening, the storytelling is top notch. The game is the perfect amalgation (duh, dict.leo.org doesn't recognize that word... strange it something sounding akin to amalgation I think... "a merge of two things") between anime and video game.

What I really love about the gameplay though is: You're only controlling your main character and while the party fights with you, you're just yourself. Roleplaying another character. That's pretty much the definition of an RPG. While that may be semantics, I always find it strange to call games as the Final Fantasy franchise true roleplaying games. So I'm supposed to roleplay 6 to 9 different character? And when we're fighting my "soul" switches through all of them so I have complete control over there action? Doesn't sound like a roleplaying game to me, more like a strategic or tactical game.

It's all the little design notches that truly take the game to game heaven for me: Like they still use senpai, -kun and such suffixes in the english translation (I always hate animes who don't even use the suffixes in subtitles), all the little multiple choice dialogs, the way that you don't really control your party, but tell them what to do via dialog (which makes it much more realistic than a simple menu where you edit their "gambits"), and especially the way you develop your character.

Oh and why do I always hear music playing throughout the game? Because my character has a freaking music player plugged into his ears, and it's even an equipable item! While that may to nada gameplay wise it's such a big atmospheric boost, which makes the immersion all the better.

The first time I was in class and the teacher asked Junpei a question, I gave him the right answer. Then some random pupil said "Oh Ichigo (sue me, I'm also fighting shadows/hallows in this game ) gave him the right answer, me must listen to the teacher." and bam, "Your charm increased by one." How
awesome is that?


Edit:
And on a sidenote: Damn, is that PS2 OS menu ugly and unwieldy! Haven't used the little thing for almost 2 years now. And I can't seem to get the game into 16:9 mode, so I have to either jolt the image or cut of the top and lower stuff. Luckily my TV is able to find a middle ground, so it's a little crushed, and a little information at top and bottom is lost, but there's still everything on in the menus. But still the characters look a little on the fat side because they aren't as high as supposed to.

Is there any way to get the PS2 to outpul real 16:9 data instead of 4:3? There's the option "4:3, full screen, 16:9" in the system configuration but that seems to to nada about the output?

If the game doesn't give you the option to use 16:9 ratio, then you're stuck with 4:3. The PS2 menu display options don't carry over into games.

Yeah the soundtrack is definitely not your run-of-the-mill, but I really like it. It's novel, and it's not too in-your-face, it always seems to be in the background, just tagging along.

But one thing that really irritates me about the game: Everyone in your party just gets unconcious when their HP reach 0, but you die and when you do it's game over. Kinda strange that you can revive other but they cannot do the same for you. If they would have at least made it like "You cannot fight any more. You decided to leave Tartarus and go back to your dorm to recover" it would be almost the same but you wouldn't lose your progress.

I just could have thrown the controller at the wall when I was leveling for the next full moon in Tartarus for more than an hour, got sweet loot and nice personas, and then all of a sudden some random booklike enemy casts the instant-kill darkness spell on my whole party. And of course it misses everyone but me!

But anyway I'm at July 24 now, just got back from the trip to the beach which was awesome. Junpei just rules, "Mission Babe Hunt commence!"

MGO2 info and Ryan Patton bitching about little kids on Cod4, i meaning raping little kids on Cod4.



http://www.konami.jp/kojima_pro/radio/t ... rt_086.mp3

Yeah I already knew that. It's not that I died when I had low HP and SP, all the times I die it's against normal enemies, not bosses, and most of the time just bad luck. Like the darkness instant kill spell, or me having Zouchoten equipped (I think he's the one with Elec weakness) and getting hit critical twice by Zio in one round. That's dead from full HP right there.

Anyway, I still have 6 shadows left. But what bothers me more, for the first ~2 month of the game I didn't really donate at the shrine every day, go karaoke/drink every day not in Tartarus, etc. to raise my stats. In a FAQ I've read you should do that every day to push your stats. They had academics 5 by the time of the second exam week?!

And you need higher academics to make fusions with 4 and 5 personas right? And on a sidenote, do you have a girlfriend already in the game? I've got to hug Yukari on the beach but that was it.
The FAQ said that you need Charm 6 by 8/2 to get Yuka-tan to go out with you and therefore start the Lovers social link. Thats like only a week away for me and I have Charm 3 still. Do you know if you can start those social links later too or if you don't take the chance right there the opportunity never comes up again?

Edit: Also do you know of any other worthwhile fusion spells besides Cadenza? I still have Orpheus and Asparas around just for that big party heal spell?

Edit2: Just found a Narcissus and with Pixie he has Frolic which reads "Heals the entire party fully but sometimes..." and though yay now I can finally leave Asparas and Orpheus behind. But fuck that sometimes... just used Frolic in the fight against those 3 black Hulk Hogan Shadows on Floor 72, and it charmed all my 3 teammates which then proceeded to kill me in one round...

So I still need Cadenza ready

Yeah I got Lamia now who's nullifying Darkness that should do against Mudo skills. And also I spent the last 2 weeks honing my charm and other skills, and in the first schoolweek after summer break Yukari wanted to tell me something special on the rooftop. Started the lovers social link although we are still just "very good friends". Hehe. On the other side Yuko's really interested too.

This game only gets better the longer you play. How awesome is a normal dog fighting with a knife in his mouth?

Oh and on a sidenote: Do you know where in the game the menu screen with a little description about the persona is hidden? I once by accident accessed it (saying something about Orpheus, like 5 lines of text, but better than nothing) but can't find it anymore? I searched the player menu and the velvet room, to no avail.

And concerning fusion spells, I recon you have at least Cadenza from Orpheus + Asparas, aye? I couldn't even beat the first full moon shadow without it. Still is a great spell for boss battles. Heals around 150 HP to everyone in the party and ups the hit and evasion rate too.

Is the Jack Brothers spell worth having? I have Sati for all my fire needs and Gonga for all my ice needs now, so I don't have both Jacks equiped?

Aetherfukz wrote:Is the Jack Brothers spell worth having?

I don't know, it's really up to you. All it does is have a chance to knock the enemy down.

Yeah tried it out yesterday. Checked out Jack Frost from the enceclopedia for it and after I tried the spell I got a new persona and promptly dismissed Jack Frost for it

well any games you guys waiting for in the near future?

I'm still waiting for the holy trinity: GTA4, MGS4 and SoulCalibur 4.

God of War and Kingdom Hearts are lagging behind.

War Machine wrote:God of War and Kingdom Hearts are lagging behind.

very i haven't even heard anything about kingdom hearts only the three thats not for ps3

Well GTA4 is everything I wished for it to be. The singleplayer (played for about 4-5 hours now) is awesome, but alas the server seem to have problems so I cannot try out the multiplayer.

Anyway the gameplay is flawless as expected from a GTA title, but what I really like is the more mature storyline. Especially how everything is much more raw, and gruesome, just like the violence is with better graphics and physics (boxing a guy out of his car to hijack it, but before entering stabbing him in the chest with the knife, and after taking the car rolling him over while still alive and suffering is really... kinda horrible, but fun nontheless in the game XD). And I really love Nico as the protagonist. And how he was in the war, and basically just tells everyone when asked how fucking terrible war is... just a quote paraphrased I got some hour ago when Michelle asked about it:

"Seeing your friends die by your side? Seeing them blown apart? It was horrible... it... it ruined me."

That's some heavy shit. And I can much more identify myself with such a character than someone from the Ghetto who just wanna bust a cap, or a Tony Montana Ripoff.

On top of that, the TV shows are awesome. Have you watched "Republican Space Rangers" yet? Hilarious!

GTA4 is indeed amazing, especially the multiplayer. It feels really fun to play in party play, most likely because it's not just players going around killing each other, but all of Liberty City is in party play as well. The gameplay and graphics are amazing like aether said (though I had to turn up the brightness), but because of the online goodness, I decided to get this game for the 360. Damn you, Home, when are you coming out?