Treasure is announcing on their site they are developing a new Bleach title for the Wii called Bleach Versus Crusade. Little in known about it, but it will be a 2 player 3D fighter developed by the Treasure team that did the two Bleach fighters for the DS. While this means the title will probably be good (and definitely better than that Bleach schlock on PSP), Treasure fans are deeply disappointed as it reaffirms Treasure’s new trend of only making sequels and licensed games.

Today is an epic day for Nintendo of America. For the first time since the NOA’s founding in 1980, they have acknowledged gay people exist, with the virtual console release of the homoerotic shooter, Chou Aniki.

Nintendo has been known for its excessive censorship. For years even the slightest reference to subjects like relegion, alchohol, and yes homosexuality were completely removed from the U.S. release of Nintendo games. In recent years, Nintendo has lighted up on these policies, leaving the censorship decisions to  publishers. Up until now, we have seen no references to homosexuality in a game on any Nintendo console (no, Tingle doesn’t count!).

Chou Aniki is a shmup for the Tubo Grafix featuring muscular body builders and very mild homoerotic imagery. The game spawned many sequels which are much more explicit. So by normal standards, Chou Aniki really isn’t a big deal at all. In fact the ultra conservative ESRB gave it an E10 rating (I guess nine-year-olds are still too young to look at pixelated body builders).

To me, the significance of this release is that Nintendo, at least on some level, is still listening to core gamers. Chou Aniki wasn’t released for the Wii Sports crowd. Someone somewhere said “I want a big gay shooter where muscle men shoot protein out of holes in their heads”, and Nintendo delivered. If Nintnedo will bring Chou Aniki to U.S. audiances, the sky’s the limit. I’m hoping for the next Chou Aniki game, which is a heck of a lot gayer. That would prove Nintnedo really is removed from their past no gays in games pollicy.

I’ve sat down with the game for a bit and can say the game is pretty fun for its age. Out of the 5000 some archaic shmups released on the virtual console, Chou Aniki is one of the better ones.

Magic Box was kind enough to inform people that Sega has announced a game for their popular (in Japan) Culdcept franchise for the DS. Anyone who’s ever played the game will know that the DS is the perfect system for the series, and multiplayer will be better than ever! It will be interesting to see if you can still see your opponent’s hand in the DS version. With personal DS screens, Sega has the option of hiding everyone’s hand, which would change the strategy drastically (possibly for the worse).

Culdcpet is also coming out for Xbox 360 in the States, quarter 1, 2008.

…in Europe at least. Americans will have to wait another week. here are my impressions of the European version which will likely be identical.

The translation is completely re-done. And done properly this time. No more typos, and the dialog seems written by -well, someone who knows how to write. Many class, skill, and character names have been changed to ones more suitable. And more interestingly, the entire style of the dialog has been changed to something resembling old English. Don’t be put off; it’s nothing like Shakespeare. There aren’t any “Thou arts” or anything. But the way characters speak is poetic, and eloquent, and a few old fashioned words are used. While I find it odd considering I’m so used to the characters speaking how they did in the PS1 version, I can not deny that this version is much better, and it breaths new life back into the incredible story of FFT. Also, you can tell what the heck is going on in the plot since the new translator wasn’t on drugs.

There is slowdown. Many people said that the slowdown was fixed for the English version. I have to wonder if this was propaganda, because I have abundantly apparent slowdown on my version. Indeed, when you perform graphics-heavy move like Gafgarion’s Life Drain, the sound plays ahead of the skill, and you hear the sword strike before the graphics for the giant sword even appears. This is unpleasant but hardly game-killing. And even with the slowdown (which is only on big special effects to my knowledge), the game pace is still fast for an SRPG. Bottom line: it’s a shame, but don’t let it dissuade you from getting the game.

I can’t comment on the new characters or classes ’cause I don’t have ‘em. Likewise, I haven’t tried out the new multiplayer modes (and might not get to since I hear Europe versions aren’t compatible with U.S.). Regardless, even without these enhancements, FFT is still the greatest Tactical RPG ever and you should go out and get it even if it means selling blood. I don’t even care whose blood.

vs.

vs.

Recently, two tactical RPGs have been released, both of which have the word ‘Arc’ in them. The market hasn’t been this saturated with tactical RPGs featuring some sort of ‘Arc’ since Working Designs released The Arc the Lad Collection for PS1. With so many options to chose from how can you tell which arc-related SRPG is right for you? Have no fear, in typical terrible Gamefaqs review fashion I have broken the games into separate categories so I can contrast them for you. I also threw in the movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, for good measure.

Story

Luminous Arc
Luminous Arc encapsulates what is wrong with Japanese RPG plots, which is to say it is vapid, drawn out, redundant schlock. There is church. There is witches. You with church. Church kill witches. You find out witches good and church bad. You kill church. You fight some God who want kill world. You save world (who saw that coming?). The plot is essentially a bad version of EVERY OTHER DAMN TACTICAL RPG PLOT EVER! In an effort to inject humor to the story the game has some of your characters obsessed with things. For instance, your little brother really like eggs. You will read much dialog (because nothing can be skipped, NOTHING) about how he enjoys eggs.

Jeanne D’Arc
As the name implies, Jeanne D’Arc is loosely based on the historical figure of the same name. If I had a time machine, it would be fun to go back 600 years and inform Jeanne that while she will be burnt alive for heresy, the end result will be an excellent video game “with you as the main protagonist!”. No doubt this would ease her suffering. The game’s plot is dark, actually interesting, and has a few good twists. Unlike with Luminous Arc, I’m not gonna spoil this one. The anime cut scenes are great, but not well suited to a portable system where one might not be able to turn the sound up.

Raiders of the Lost Ark
In Indiana Jones’ first big screen adventure we see him travel the world in search of the Ark of the Covenant. I know little of biblical text, but the Ark seems like a big, surprisingly light weight, gold box that kills Nazis. Oh man do a lot of Nazis die in this film. If I were a Nazi and I saw this film, I’d sue Lucasfilm for discrimination. I wonder if that happened? I dunno, I was like four or something when it came out.

Graphics

Luminous Arc
Not straying from the original Tactics Ogre, Luminous Arc employs full 2D graphics. While the art is pleasant and the character portraits are large and well drawn, the inability to rotate the playfield is annoying and many battles get so cluttered with character sprites that it becomes a chore to tell who you are targeting, even for the initiated. Minor graphical hiccups plague the cut-scenes and the whole game just doesn’t feel like it’s utilizing the DSes full potential.

Jeanne D’Arc
Full 3D allows us to rotate the playfield up, down, or to any of eight directions (most SRPGs only allow four directions). The playfields are huge, but the zoom function helps keep tabs on everything or to focus on an area when need be. As in most all SRPGs, that characters are chibi. But because they are in 3D and thus a bit more realistic-looking than your average SRPG character, they look rather silly with their huge heads and tiny bodies. It makes one wonder if Jeanne D’ Arc actually lead an army of midgets.

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Man, computer graphics really made a difference in the movie industry. Go back and watch an action movie from the 80’s. Even the high budget ones look like “Power Rangers” quality these days. There’s something to be said for not having everything be digital. In some sense, it’s actually more realistic. But as Indy goes through the temple in the beginning of the movie, dodging spikes and running from boulders, I can’t help but draw the comparison to Nickelodeon’s Legend of the Hidden Temple. I wonder if they shared props?

Battle System

Luminous Arc
There’s no character customization. Your characters simply get new skills at certain levels. This gives the game a “why bother”, linear feel. It’s an easy game so I played the whole thing without playing a single extra level or side quest. It actually got a little tough towards the middle, but then I got some insanely good skills like a 75% chance of death spell and a full-health revive spell. These spells take up a good chuck of MP, but each character is fully restored upon level-up and level-ups are a frequent occurrence.

Jeanne D’Arc
Like Luminous Ark, I played no extra levels in an effort to make the game as challenging as possible. And I died a lot. The end result was that each level was an uphill struggle that required I use every ounce of skill I had. My characters had to be perfectly equipped for battle to stand a chance. Each character can equip up to three skill gems (which as you level increases to a maximum of six). These skills can be actions, stat-raising, or passive abilities. You gain skill gems from killing enemies or skills can be fused together to create better ones. It’s a fun system. Two thirds into the game, I came across a boss who was too much for me. There’s a turn limit on each battle and I simply wasn’t able to do enough damage within the allotted turns. I like how the turn limit forces you into being aggressive, but in this case it forced me to level up by doing some side quests. After that, the rest of the game was too easy, but still fun.

Raiders of the Lost Ark
Raiders of the Lost Ark fails miserably as a Tactical RPG. There’s almost zero interactivity, apart from pressing play on your DVD remote. So instead I will review Raiders of the Lost Ark for the Atari 2600. This game looks like crap. I don’t know what I’m doing. The puzzles seem random and the incessant beeping in the background is giving me a headache!

End Game

Luminous Arc
The end is long. Like all the other damnable dialog, you can’t skip it. There’s a new game+ where you keep pretty much everything (levels, items, etc), but the enemies aren’t any tougher so I fail to see the point. There’s an extra dungeon, so I actually played through the whole game a second time. The extra dungeon is available at the beginning, but I needed to buy better equipment which of course wasn’t available until I neared the end of the game again. Once again, I couldn’t skip any of the cut scenes, only now the battles were boring along with the story. The extra dungeon is 25 levels and if you leave you have to start over at the beginning! It starts out super easy and gets super hard, meaning you have to be really overpowered when you enter in order to survive the later floors. By floor eleven I was hours into the dungeon only to find there was no way in hell I’d be able to beat it without exiting and fusing a bunch of cheap items. I put the game down and haven’t touched it since.

Jeanne D’Arc
There are several side quests and an arena to fight in after you beat the game. Those not ready to be done with Jeanne D’Ark will enjoy finding and fusing the remaining skill gems. Most levels now have extremely high-level monsters which will give enough reason to keep powering up your army. There seems to be no reward for beating these extra challenges apart from becoming more powerful. That and the satisfaction.

Raiders of the Lost Ark
In the end of the movie the Nazis open the ark and it brutally kills them all, Old Testament-style. What I really liked was the selectiveness it used. The ark outright melted one of the Nazis, while it blew up the head of the Nazi right next to him! Why would God melt one guy and blow up another? The only reason I can think of is because (according to the movie) God enjoys variety in the way he smites people. I’m not a very religious man, but this movie (and it’s brutal Nazi killing throughout) makes me want to find religion.

Music

Indiana Jones wins. Duh.

Overall

Luminous Arc
I’ve been harsh on Luminous Arc. The game isn’t terrible. It has pleasant aesthetics, and there are many worse tactical RPGs out there. Many. It’s worth picking up if you need another SRPG and don’t mind some tedious moments.

Jeanne D’Arc
This one surprised me. Even non-tactical RPG players will enjoy this as it is exceptionally accessible. It’s only 30 bucks too despite being a full budget game. The anime cut scenes alone cost more than all of Luminous Arc combined (I totally made that up, but it could be true).

Raiders of the Lost Ark
Sadly, those looking for Tactical RPGs should stay far away from this movie. On the other had, if you hate Nazis (and who doesn’t) this is the movie for you.

There you have it. Go out and play Jeanne D’Arc now

…because once FFT comes out for the PSP next month it will be the most worthwhile SRPG again, despite the complete absence of any arcs (to my knowledge; they did say there would be new content).

Thanks to RPGamer for the screen shots.

Well, looks like the new Treasure DS game has been revealed by Famitsu. It’s a sequel to Bangai-Oh, which few can complain about. Especially since there’s reports of a level editor! Here’s the first scan (scroll a bit).

I wonder if we’ll ever see an original title from Treasure again?

This guy is talented! Check out his games Noitu Love and Chalk. Both are free to download.

Noitu Love feels like Kid Chameleon if it were a beat ‘em up and had Alien Hominid’s sense of humor. The visuals and music are astounding for a game developed by a single person (get past the first level to see what I mean).

Here is a countdown page that will allegedly reveal the new DS project Treasure is working on with ESP. I, for one, will hang myself if it’s another licensed title, so let’s hope it’s something original.

Normally, I do not endorse needless marketing tactics such as countdown pages. But this could be the first completely original Treasure title since Ikaruga back in 2002! I firmly suggest we all make some popcorn, load up the page, and wait the five days as the page counts down. Bring your own bedpan.

This year’s Penny Arcade Expo was probably the best ever. With over 30,000 attendees this year, the Seattle convention center was packed and overflowing with nerd musk.

Internet Overlord and Starship Ensign Wil Wheaton delivered the keynote speech, where he regaled the crowd with humorous stories of his youth spent gaming in arcades (remember those?).

The concerts were great with performers such as indie synthpop band Freezepop and nerdcore rapper MC Frontalot. And the Minibosses were there of course, playing about a bajillion Castlevania songs and for some extremely annoying reason, interspersing their songs with the Excitebike tune over and over and over. I Probably heard it 30 times.

On the gaming side of things, all the big names were there. Several unreleased games were available for play. Naturally, the Penny Arcade RPG was demoed, and I have to say it’s the funniest game I’ve seen in years. Along with the expertly crafted dialog, there was some very un-PC, humorous, gory hobo killing that cracked me up. The battles, however, look rather boring and traditional. Hopefully the Mario RPG-esqu elements with keep things feeling fresh.

My number one pick goes out to Culdcept Saga for the 360. The PS2 Culdcept was largely ignored thanks to zero marketing and one of the worst translations in gaming history. In Culdcept you make decks of creatures items and spells and battle it out Monopoly-style on a board. The new version offers full online support, tons of new cards, and I must say, the jump to 3D actually looks pretty spiffy. The cards still have gorgeous 2D art though and many old cards have had their art replaced. Not to mention, many old cards have been changed, mostly for better balance. But some changes are questionable. The Hurricane now gets +30 str in battle which seems absurd.

Okay, that’s enough reporting for the three of you out there who’ve actually played the first Culdcept. Let’s see, what else? Uh, Sabertooth (the UFS guys) were there and I soundly thrashed developer David Freeman with my Rose deck. They were giving out some preview cards from their Darkstalkers expansion, but the cards aren’t tourney legal so you didn’t miss much if you didn’t get any.

There was a bunch of other stuff too, but we’re reaching the end of what ol’ Mad Mage here cares about. I guess you should have gone to PAX yourself if you wanted to know more. So there!

I love video games but they don’t always love me back. For instance, I know for a fact EA games don’t love me. But I suppose that’s reasonable considering some of the mean things I’ve said about them. Sadly, Persona 3 doesn’t love me either. I’m able to tell because it keeps killing me repeatedly. You see, generally things that kill you, don’t love you unless we are talking about a crazy person like the guy who killed John Lennon. But we are talking about Persona 3, which I love dearly despite the fact that it continually abuses me. Don’t get me wrong, if you let one game abuse you to the point of tears, please, let it be Persona 3. The number of things this game does right is so numerous I don’t know where to start. Unsurpassed style pours out of this game starting with the opening movie and never relinquishing until the very end of this 50+ hour game.

Step into the role of Mr. Generic RPG Protagonist Guy. You and a few other select kids have the ability to stay conscious during the 25th hour of each day. That’s when the demons come out. All others, completely oblivious to this hour, are put in a sort of stasis. The demons, which are multiplying, then come out and feed on the poor souls. So it’s your job to destroy the demons. You can each command a “Persona”. Using a seemingly magic gun called an “Evoker” you can shoot yourself in the head to draw out your persona’s powers. I know, it’s odd. So anyway, grab your persona (figuratively) and head into Tartaros, the game’s main dungeon. Sporting over a hundred floors you will make many trips back here as you strive for that next checkpoint which will let you instantly warp to that floor on a future visit. The main incentive to fight in Tartaros is to level up. Every full moon is when the demons attack, and frequent visits to Tartaros will be necessary if you want a fighting chance the next time a full moon rolls around. What do you do when you’re not furiously battling evil demon hordes to decide the fate of the world you ask? Why, you’re going to High School of course. You see, unlike child actors, you want to have skills to fall back on (in case the demon vanquishing market ever falls through). Smart, huh? In fact most of your time won’t be spent fighting or exploring at all. Each day you will go to school where one or two small cut scenes may or may not transpire. After school you may do as you please until the evening.

By far the best way to spend this time is to improve your relationships with people. Over the course of the game you make several friends and choosing to spend time with any given friend after school will result in (probably) a cut scene and (hopefully) leveling up your friend rank with them thus giving you more power. More on that later. Most of your friends fit into two categories. There’s the comedic obsessive type, such as the student council member who’s obsessed with finding out who’s been smoking in the restroom to the point of harassing absolutely everyone, or the slimy businessman who takes you on as an apprentice and teaches you in the ways of underhanded business tactics. To raise your friendship with with these loons you must agree with them despite how insane they act. Then there’s the sad type, like the alcoholic monk whose family left him or the man dying of a terminal disease. If that sounds depressing, it is. However these characters are far more fleshed out than the comedic ones, having layers of depth rarely seen in RPGs. Leveling up my relationship and seeing where all the different character’s stories go is my favorite part of Persona 3. It doesn’t hurt that in doing so my Personas get stronger.

About that. The main character can use multiple Personas. One can be equipped at a time and they may be switched as a free action once per turn in battle. Apart from HP and SP, your equipped Persona decides all of your character’s stats. His Strength, Magic, Endurance, etc., as well as all of his skills and elemental resistances. Multiple Personas can be fused together to create new ones with some of the old skills the old ones had. The higher your friendship rank, the more leveled up your new persona will be. It is far faster to fuse Personas than to level them up in battle, so making lots of friends pays off. Plus, picking and mixing your new Persona is endlessly amusing. Having several Personas to chose from with a wide array of skills is essential.

The battles are standard Japanese RPG fare with a couple exceptions. For starters, this game is actually balanced, meaning that no spell is useless. Even status ailments and stat enhancers are worth using in situations. This means that you will be making many tough decisions as you struggle, yes I said struggle, to stay alive. I’ve played more than a hundred RPGs in my life (I counted) and this is probably in the top ten most difficult if you don’t count SRPGs. Please bear in mind I’m saying this as a compliment. Let’s face it, most Japanese RPGs are mind-numbingly easy. Don’t let the difficulty dissuade you; if you ever find yourself at a part that’s too tough you can always level up. Also, there’s an easy mode available at the beginning of the game which I would recommend to non-RPG veterans.

Another big deviation from the norm would be that you only control your character. Over the course of the game you gain several party members, up to three of which can join you in battle at any given time. However these guys have the audacity to do whatever they please! Imagine if you needed Barret to attack that soldier but he was like “No way! I think I’ll use a potion on myself instead”. To be fair, the AI is reasonably smart and you can issue tactical commands like “use support” or “go all out”, etc. Actually, if given the choice, I’d definitely keep it the way it is. Having my companions automatically attack makes battles a lot faster. Also, having my teammates independent instills a feeling of comradery and teamwork that you don’t find when you control everyone. Even equipping a companion requires that I talk to them and give them the new equipment. It may seem like a needless extra step, but after I’ve been in battle for a while with these nearly autonomous people, having saved their skins and them saving mine countless times, I feel a connection that wouldn’t be there if I were simply controlling everyone.

Another reason I feel connected to the game’s characters is the excellent writing. Apart from your optional trips to Tartaros and and on full moon nights, you won’t be fighting or exploring. That only leaves reading. With the exception of Suikoden 5 and the Elder Scroll series this has got to be the most text heavy RPG I’ve ever played. Like in many RPGs, your main character is silent in an effort to make yourself feel more connected to him. Fortunately you are given countless dialog options allowing you to say what you want. I desperately wish more games were like this as it makes watching the story much more fun when you are actually participating in the conversation. For a while I was being mean to my teammate, Junpei. Junpei isn’t that bright so he’s always arguing with the more serious Yukari. They kept trying to drag me into their bickering and I usually ended up making fun of Junpei because it amused me. After a while Junpei started acting like a total jerk towards me and I began to fear for our friendship. “Junpei’s a good guy” I thought to myself. “He’s always such a team player and now I’ve gone and ruined our relationship by insulting him one too many times”. Saddened that I had neglected Junpei’s feelings I had no choice but to take his crap. Then, finals (remember, we’re in high school) week was finished and Junpei approached me apologized for acting like a jerk. He said it was because he was stressed out with finals. I was immensely relieved to find out that we were still friends and that Junpei was just mad because he’s stupid (I checked his score. It was very low). To be fair, nothing I said actually brought this about, but my point is that most other Japanese RPGs don’t have the level of depth or the quality of writing to make one care about the characters on any real level.

The music, unlike anything ever heard in an RPG, is a mix of Japanese Hiphop and Techno with ambient vocals. Slightly odd at first, the soundtrack will likely grow on you quickly. Simply put, it’s some incredible sounding music that complements the fresh feeling that’s so predominate in Persona 3. Be glad Atlus is including the soundtrack with every initial release copy of the game. Visually, the game impresses. The high def art for the characters is refreshingly different and simply gorgeous, and each character has several pictures to represent them. Animated cut scenes are abundant throughout the beginning of the game (and far less frequent afterwards). The animation is fluid and easily on par with many anime. Actually, the whole game feels like an anime. The voice acting is only available in English, presumably because there was no more room on the disk. This doesn’t surprise me considering that all plot-related cut scenes and dialog are voiced. Atlus USA went all out with this one, hiring some of the biggest names in anime voice acting and the result is something that even die-hard Japanophiles like myself can appreciate. Despite no Japanese voice acting, I give Persona 3 huge props for its localization. Since the game takes place in a Japanese city, Japanese culture is far too incorporated to change. Atlus realized this and hasn’t “Americanized” the game at all. Characters even use some Japanese words and honorifics, but nothing someone who watches fan subbed anime wouldn’t know. Persona 3 represents what English localizations should be: masterfully rewritten dialog without ever changing the meaning or tone of any given sentence.

So why, if this game is so brilliant, does it hate me (and you, did I mention it hates you too)? Cheap deaths. Elements are a large part of the battle system. Fortunately, unlike in Final Fantasy this actually adds an iota of strategy to the game. Each character and enemy has elemental weaknesses and strengths. Playing your elemental “cards” right has never been so important, as hitting someone with an elemental attack they are weak against not only does more damage but provides you with a free turn AND makes them stunned, missing their next turn. This is a triple whammy, more potent than in any game ever. Using it on enemies is great, don’t get me wrong. In fact, if you manage to stun all the enemies this way you are given the option to have all your characters charge the enemy, doing a large amount of damage to all of them. The problem is when the enemy plays your weakness. You see, some genius at Atlus decided it would be a good idea to include both lethal elemental weaknesses and the much despised rule that if your main character dies in battle, the game is over. Now combine that with 10+ floors you have to traverse before getting to a check point and you may find yourself losing the game after hours of unsaved progress, with no other option than to reload (assuming you haven’t smashed in your Playstation). Since your character has the ability to change Persona and you can see what attacks your enemy has, a careful person can make absolute certain that he is never weak against his enemy’s attack. However this would make the battles take far longer than anyone I know has patience for. Heck, if you level up a bit, most battles aren’t too dangerous (though still far more than in other RPGs). It’s those attacks that catch you off guard. With thousands of battles played by the end of the game, you can’t be expected to be paying perfect attention in every single one. I mean, there’s a death spell. A DEATH SPELL! If the enemy casts it on your main guy and it hits, that’s it. Game over man, game over! Heck, there’s even a death spell that targets all your characters. You damn well better have a Persona with strength against darkness equipped for that one. I’m sure there’s some Shin Megami fans that will eat me alive for saying this, but I think there’s no excuse for such blatantly cheap deaths in RPGs today. And I haven’t even gotten started ranting about the charm spell.

If there’s something good to come out of the harsh beating Persona 3 bestows on you, it’s a reason to keep playing. Post-Final Fantasy games and their kin give countless things to collect and do that make you stronger, but there’s no point. Unless you want to fight the secret super boss at the end, you don’t need squat to beat them. I find myself wondering why I even bother when I could simply skip everything possible and run to the end. But when I get something in Persona it matters to me! It makes me happy. It makes me think “Yes, now I might be able to beat the next boss in Tartaros”! Leveling up my friendship, getting new weapons, forging new Personas, it all matters. There’s a fun bonus card game you sometimes get to play after defeating an enemy. The cards spin around and do other tricks to throw you off as you watch, trying to pick the card with the bonus you want (Some cards even give new Personas). Later on, some of the cards have skulls on them. I was pretty good at the game, but eventually I accidentally picked a skull card. It was an exp card so I expected it to dock me some exp or something but instead I still got the exp bonus. Then something happened that sent chills down my spine. It was the text: “Death Approaches”. By this time the game had killed me several times. I knew how merciless it could be. I knew I had to get the hell out of there. I sprinted for the stairs. As I ran, a blip appeared on my radar. It was heading towards me! I could hear the *kachink* *kachink* of chains as it pursued me. It cut off my path to the stairs. At that point I didn’t have a dungeon escape item so I had no choice but to search for a warp point. As I hastily turned I saw it behind me. It was death. He was floating towards me. At that moment I knew I would die if he reached me. I didn’t know death, but I knew the game well enough to know I would die if I couldn’t escape. I’ve never had a near death experience in real life but I will say to you that this is the next best thing. Letting out a yelp, hands sweating, I ran. I blindly ran like never before, all the while watching the radar blip behind me as it drew ever near. Somehow, I found a warp point and hit it right as Death’s sickle was in the foreground of my screen. My hour of game time was saved. I exhaled. It was great.

So yeah, the game hates me, but I can’t stop playing. I’ve never played the first two Personas or even a Shin Megami game, but you can be sure I’m going back and playing any and all I can get my hands on. Even if you are the sort who has become jaded by Japanese RPGs over the years I urge you to give this one a try. It’s truly refreshing and if I might go out on a limb, in a league of its own. Strongly recommended for anyone who has played Japanese RPGs, plays Japanese RPGs, or wants to play a Japanese RPG.