Fyz said:
slipgate_angel said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gI-V3Uw1b3U
O RLY?
Ohh wait, you ment PC, nevermind. ;;^.^
Are todays JRPGs any good? Note that i'm not expecting them to give a decent western-style Role-playing experience, just to have a decent story, well written characters, hidden weapons, skills to explore, the typical JRPG stuff.
Also, can anyone share some insight on that fabled Persona3 game or whatever it is called?
Sometimes i feel the urge to consolize myself, as i only enjoy old PC games anyway, but then i realize that console stuff would also bore me.
Persona 3 is probably the best JRPG to come out in quite a while. Briefly speaking, it's a long-ass dungeon-crawler (there's a 255 floor tower and after 30 hours I've only managed to reach the 80th floor), dating-sim and traditional JRPG all rolled up into one. You get dialog trees where your answer really does matter. The game is not non-linear, nor is it P&P-inspired like Fallout or Arcanum, but the turn-based combat is addictive and quick, something very important since the focus of the game is dungeon-crawling and fighting in order to get to the top of the tower while also building up your army of Persona's. Building social relationships in the game world leads to getting bonuses on the persona's you create, so it's usually a good idea to make friends and date girls.
Characterizations are consistent, though, for example: my friend Kizushi injured his knee and asked me to keep his secret out of fear of being disqualified from the regional matches, so if you tell him to forget kendo and get that treated he'll get pissed and the relationship will suffer. (The first time I tried telling him to go to the hospital because it was the goody-goody dialog option and I'm used to always choosing the goody-goody response from playing BioWare games, so I was geniunely surprised when he got pissed at me for caring about his well being. Obviously, in Kizushi's view being an athlete and being treated as an athlete is much more important.)
The game's writing is of the usual JRPG translation quality, but it isn't bad. It's just... simple, and to the point. Characters are written in broad strokes and stereotyped pretty heavily, but never in an overdone way. It isn't any more offensive in this regard than any other television program. The plot itself is simple, and this would suck if the game put a lot of emphasis into it but fortunately the plot is just a device to get the characters from point A to point B and have them explore dungeons and meet new people.
The real joy to the game is two-parted: 1) grinding through Tartarus, (that's what the 255 floor tower is called), and shaping your party into persona-using ubermensch that will annihilate every monster they come across, (which isn't easy! The SMT games are some of the few JRPG's where there's still a smidgen of challenge. Certainly the game is much harder than any Bioware CRPG, that's for sure); and 2) enjoying the dating-sim aspects of the game such as making friends with the people in your school and helping them out with their problems in life and love. It took me a while to get into it, but I'm finding myself rushing through Tartarus every night so that Sunday comes and I can go out with the PC's friends.
Like I said in a previous thread, though: there are a few things you have to take into consideration before jumping into the game.
1) if you don't like anime art and anime characters you will not like Persona 3.
2) if you don't like JRPG's and expect a CRPG you will not like Persona 3.
3) if you're expecting good writing you will not like Persona 3.
4) if you're expecting Wizardry when you hear the term dungeon-crawl you will not like Persona 3.
Other than that, though, it's a fantastic JRPG and a pretty safe buy.
EDIT: Oh, and the movie GIF is from Rambo 4, I think.