I still very much love this game after playing it both with people and a bit more through the story line. The controls are tight and responsive and animation really cool. There is occasionally a little too much talking…where you will have a conversation with someone and then the character has an internal monologue about what just happened. I just kinda sit there and am like, I just heard that, I don’t need to hear it again. But the storyline, at the same time, is really cool since it ties both Persona 3 and Persona 4 more together, beyond what they had done in Persona 4 already.
Playing PvP is really fun, particularly when you have two people who don’t quite know what they are doing. The button mashing that ensues results in some really neat combos along with some missed opportunities. But you see something and then you become determined to master it. Then it never wants to work against the computer! Is that not always the way, though? It was also a little bit more of a social fighting game then I normally see. When you go and play people want to talk about their favorite characters. Not in the way you hear during Street Fighter or Tekken…but in a much deeper way. In most cases, these are characters that you have played hours upon hours of story line with and have a deep vested interest in their lives and personalities. You speak of them more like old friends then characters. And you don’t get into fights over which character has the better move set, but over who has the deeper story and how they interacted with that other persons favorite character. It creates a much different social dynamic that I enjoy to no end.
Now into the single player story mode. I’m not sure what the point of the bookmarks are. I stopped the game one night, went to go pick Yukiko’s story back up…and had to start from scratch. Despite having bookmark 6. I went back to the title screen and looked for what I was missing. Didn’t see anything. Looked in the guide. Nothing. Checked the internet and there are very few discussion on the bookmark method at all. Am I the only person who just doesn’t have the time to sit there and marathon through these thing? Anyone have any tips or is it really a rather useless feature that just allows me to fast forward(not skip) some of the talking?
I did complete Main Character’s story mode, which then unlocked two new characters for me to use. Not sure why I got two characters I did not encounter at all throughout the story, but sure. The biggest disappoint was the lack of a final boss. I’m not sure if I have to clear all the characters to get to that final boss. You see this epic cut scene with Labrys and Shadow Labrys and the character prepares to fight, but then nothing, you just go back to character select. I’ll be following up on this in future posts probably.
Labrys is pretty cool looking…although it maybe my love for blue haired girls talking.
Other than that, it is an awesome game. I played with the extra pictures that were included and the sound effects and while nothing new from a fighting game, it is still nice to see the characters in such great detail. If you are a fan of fighting games like BlazBlue or Guilty Gear pick this up. If you love Atlus, pick this up. If you love complex stories with questions abound, pick this up. If you just want to see your favorite characters in a new light, pick this up as well.
Okay…so I have to get back to prepping for the wedding and writing a paper…Talk to you all later!
Gaming is Life 