Square-Enix finally fixed their sights on a largely rumoured 13th March 2009 date for the European release of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4. The critically acclaimed RPG will come with a bonus 24 song CD and at the moment is holding a budget price of £17.99 on most online retailers.
The game centers around a small town where strange murders are happening. For some reason, these tend to correspond to the weather in the town. Just like in Persona 3, you have to balance your school life but with Persona 4, the pace will pick up as there is no telling when the weather will turn bad.
Official website
Source: Press release
Showing posts with label Atlus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Atlus. Show all posts
Friday, 13 February 2009
Wednesday, 20 August 2008
Yggdra Union hits the US in September
Riviera: The Promised Land (as I learned to my surprise) was part of a series of games. Guess what? Yggdra Union is part 2 of that series, and the US will see it's release for the PSP on September 16th 2008. The game will boast a few extra features from the original GBA game including new characters, missions and a dual-language voiceover track so those who hate American voice acting can listen to the Japanese instead.
The game has not been confirmed for Europe.
The game has not been confirmed for Europe.
Tuesday, 20 May 2008
Game review: Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3
Game - Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 (PS2)
Remember your school days? I bet they were full of days out with your friends and just generally surviving exams and tests. That said, I don’t think it will have gotten as eventful as the characters from and near Gekkoukan High school. That’s mainly because there’s more than 24 hours a day, there’s a load of people going "Uhhhhh" and there’s even a few who own gun-shaped weapons that they use to shoot themselves. Welcome to the surreal world of Persona 3.
School
As you can already tell, the game has a unique twist to the RPG genre. First of all, you’re playing a year in the life of the main protagonist (named by you) as he goes through his first year after being transferred. Every day at midnight, the dark hour starts, during which time, electronic equipment dies and people turn into coffins. Except you, as it appears you have the "potential". This potential eventually shows that you’re able to summon a Persona (or to be precise, more than one), which you do by using an evoker (which looks like a gun) and firing it at your head. Your other friends in your dorm can also summon a single Persona each and together form SEES - a squad dedicated to eliminating Shadows.
Story-wise, that’s all you need to know. From this point, apart from dedicated storylines, the game’s progress is pretty much up to you. Every Monday to Saturday, you go to school to participate in lessons, answer quizzes and even take the dreaded exams from your youth. After school has finished, you’re able to go out with one of your friends or, if you’re a loner, go out and do some activities by yourself, some of which may help you later on. For example, studying in the library can help improve your academics, which means better progress in the exams.
Fighting
When evening falls, you have the option to go to Tartarus, the mysterious tower that appears during the dark hour. It is here where you hope to answer questions about the shadows and the dark hour itself. This is where the bulk of the fighting takes place. Persona 3 uses a turn-based system, but you only control the main character’s actions. Everyone else is controlled by the AI. Thankfully then, the AI is pretty good in most situations. You can fine tune the tactics of your team members as well, in case you want to do something specific.
For example, you might want your team-mates to attack the opponent’s weaknesses. If they do this, the enemy will be knocked down, which is rewarded with a bonus attack. If all of the enemies are knocked down, you can call an all-out attack, which produces major damage to all foes. As your personas level up, you are able to use more abilities to help you out and target more of their weaknesses. So, how can you pick up these amazing things?
Going nuclear
Well, you can pick some up (as well as some bonus weapons, money or experience points) after battles. The personas you pick up in this way tend to be poor or have an obvious weakness. What’s the best way to get round that? That’s where fusion comes in. When you have 2 or more personas, you can fuse them together in the Velvet Room where you can create a new persona. These fused personas gain some of the abilities of their previous forms. Not only that, but there’s a way to make them start out even stronger. That is based on social links, the relationships you have with your friends during the day.
Basically, if you establish a social link that is the same type as the persona you're creating, your new persona will gain bonus experience points. The better the relationship, the more experience you will gain and the more abilities you can pass on. Also, if you gain enough experience points, you can gain a lot of the abilities that you would usually have to wait for by levelling up normally.
The combinations you can make are huge and the risks of creating something poor are minimal. That’s because the result of every fusion you attempt is shown to you so you can tailor the persona to what you want, which means there’s no excuse not to experiment with fusion, which suddenly starts to feel like a challenge. Can you make the best Persona you can with all its weaknesses covered? While you are in the Velvet room, you can take on a number of requests to gain items and money. You can also store your Personas in a compendium as they are, and take them out for a fee, which potentially makes fusion even less of a risk than it already is. You can quite easily get your Persona back if you use it in a fusion but want to keep the Persona you used.
Balance your life
With everything said, you need to balance school life and your trips to Tartarus carefully. You can spend a long time studying, but then you’ll be unprepared for future trips to the tower. Furthermore, every month in the game, you will have a major story incident which will usually involve fighting. You can’t train on the day it happens so if you’re not good enough, you could potentially be stuck completely. Going all out in Tartarus is not a good idea either. The game is lenient enough in the hardest setting to not make you have to grind your way through the story and your studies will suffer as a result of grinding. While this doesn’t completely affect your progress in Tartarus, some social links and the exams require you to study more until you’re smart enough. Also, trips to Tartarus tend to get slightly tedious as well if you train too much.
By balancing school life and Tartarus, you will find that the pace of the game is well set. You can run through a set of days in a few minutes, then follow it up with a trip to Tartarus, which depending on your style, can take about an hour per trip. The game is voice acted during major cut-scenes and in general, well presented. There are anime cut-scenes for major story events but around that, the graphics style looks great and suits the game perfectly. This is matched by a bouncy Japanese pop soundtrack which gives the game an urban feel. The story is also solid enough to keep you going to the end and as the relationships with your friends get better, you get to know them better yourself, which is something I really like about the game. It provides a distraction to the main story and makes you want to delve deeper into their mini stories, with potentially great rewards at the end.
There are some minor issues though. The AI in the game isn’t perfect for one thing. In my completed attempt at the game, the AI would very rarely cure status ailments unless the tactics were just right. Their inventory also seems to consist of a large potion and a load of smaller potions. The start of the game can be a little dull as well with little in the way of serious action until you’re about an hour in. Saving is also fairly sparse as you can only save at your dorm, or on the ground floor of Tartarus.
Conclusion
In the end though, these are just minor drops in what is a very large ocean. The game is huge and can take about 70-80 hours to complete. If you get into fusion and social links, expect the game to last over 100 hours and if you want to find every single persona in the game, you can spend up to 200 hours finding them all. That’s value for money right there. The game requires a huge commitment of time but what time you spend in your life playing this, you get back with interest with quite possibly one of the most engrossing RPGs released on the PS2. You will sometimes wish it would never end. Thankfully it does, otherwise, we might never see you again. Prepare that evoker, and get ready for a journey of school and shadows that you’ll remember for a long time.
Score: 10/10
Remember your school days? I bet they were full of days out with your friends and just generally surviving exams and tests. That said, I don’t think it will have gotten as eventful as the characters from and near Gekkoukan High school. That’s mainly because there’s more than 24 hours a day, there’s a load of people going "Uhhhhh" and there’s even a few who own gun-shaped weapons that they use to shoot themselves. Welcome to the surreal world of Persona 3.
School
As you can already tell, the game has a unique twist to the RPG genre. First of all, you’re playing a year in the life of the main protagonist (named by you) as he goes through his first year after being transferred. Every day at midnight, the dark hour starts, during which time, electronic equipment dies and people turn into coffins. Except you, as it appears you have the "potential". This potential eventually shows that you’re able to summon a Persona (or to be precise, more than one), which you do by using an evoker (which looks like a gun) and firing it at your head. Your other friends in your dorm can also summon a single Persona each and together form SEES - a squad dedicated to eliminating Shadows.
Story-wise, that’s all you need to know. From this point, apart from dedicated storylines, the game’s progress is pretty much up to you. Every Monday to Saturday, you go to school to participate in lessons, answer quizzes and even take the dreaded exams from your youth. After school has finished, you’re able to go out with one of your friends or, if you’re a loner, go out and do some activities by yourself, some of which may help you later on. For example, studying in the library can help improve your academics, which means better progress in the exams.
Fighting
When evening falls, you have the option to go to Tartarus, the mysterious tower that appears during the dark hour. It is here where you hope to answer questions about the shadows and the dark hour itself. This is where the bulk of the fighting takes place. Persona 3 uses a turn-based system, but you only control the main character’s actions. Everyone else is controlled by the AI. Thankfully then, the AI is pretty good in most situations. You can fine tune the tactics of your team members as well, in case you want to do something specific.
For example, you might want your team-mates to attack the opponent’s weaknesses. If they do this, the enemy will be knocked down, which is rewarded with a bonus attack. If all of the enemies are knocked down, you can call an all-out attack, which produces major damage to all foes. As your personas level up, you are able to use more abilities to help you out and target more of their weaknesses. So, how can you pick up these amazing things?
Going nuclear
Well, you can pick some up (as well as some bonus weapons, money or experience points) after battles. The personas you pick up in this way tend to be poor or have an obvious weakness. What’s the best way to get round that? That’s where fusion comes in. When you have 2 or more personas, you can fuse them together in the Velvet Room where you can create a new persona. These fused personas gain some of the abilities of their previous forms. Not only that, but there’s a way to make them start out even stronger. That is based on social links, the relationships you have with your friends during the day.
Basically, if you establish a social link that is the same type as the persona you're creating, your new persona will gain bonus experience points. The better the relationship, the more experience you will gain and the more abilities you can pass on. Also, if you gain enough experience points, you can gain a lot of the abilities that you would usually have to wait for by levelling up normally.
The combinations you can make are huge and the risks of creating something poor are minimal. That’s because the result of every fusion you attempt is shown to you so you can tailor the persona to what you want, which means there’s no excuse not to experiment with fusion, which suddenly starts to feel like a challenge. Can you make the best Persona you can with all its weaknesses covered? While you are in the Velvet room, you can take on a number of requests to gain items and money. You can also store your Personas in a compendium as they are, and take them out for a fee, which potentially makes fusion even less of a risk than it already is. You can quite easily get your Persona back if you use it in a fusion but want to keep the Persona you used.
Balance your life
With everything said, you need to balance school life and your trips to Tartarus carefully. You can spend a long time studying, but then you’ll be unprepared for future trips to the tower. Furthermore, every month in the game, you will have a major story incident which will usually involve fighting. You can’t train on the day it happens so if you’re not good enough, you could potentially be stuck completely. Going all out in Tartarus is not a good idea either. The game is lenient enough in the hardest setting to not make you have to grind your way through the story and your studies will suffer as a result of grinding. While this doesn’t completely affect your progress in Tartarus, some social links and the exams require you to study more until you’re smart enough. Also, trips to Tartarus tend to get slightly tedious as well if you train too much.
By balancing school life and Tartarus, you will find that the pace of the game is well set. You can run through a set of days in a few minutes, then follow it up with a trip to Tartarus, which depending on your style, can take about an hour per trip. The game is voice acted during major cut-scenes and in general, well presented. There are anime cut-scenes for major story events but around that, the graphics style looks great and suits the game perfectly. This is matched by a bouncy Japanese pop soundtrack which gives the game an urban feel. The story is also solid enough to keep you going to the end and as the relationships with your friends get better, you get to know them better yourself, which is something I really like about the game. It provides a distraction to the main story and makes you want to delve deeper into their mini stories, with potentially great rewards at the end.
There are some minor issues though. The AI in the game isn’t perfect for one thing. In my completed attempt at the game, the AI would very rarely cure status ailments unless the tactics were just right. Their inventory also seems to consist of a large potion and a load of smaller potions. The start of the game can be a little dull as well with little in the way of serious action until you’re about an hour in. Saving is also fairly sparse as you can only save at your dorm, or on the ground floor of Tartarus.
Conclusion
In the end though, these are just minor drops in what is a very large ocean. The game is huge and can take about 70-80 hours to complete. If you get into fusion and social links, expect the game to last over 100 hours and if you want to find every single persona in the game, you can spend up to 200 hours finding them all. That’s value for money right there. The game requires a huge commitment of time but what time you spend in your life playing this, you get back with interest with quite possibly one of the most engrossing RPGs released on the PS2. You will sometimes wish it would never end. Thankfully it does, otherwise, we might never see you again. Prepare that evoker, and get ready for a journey of school and shadows that you’ll remember for a long time.
Score: 10/10
Thursday, 15 May 2008
Late news: SMT: Persona 4 announced and shown
Late story but one that should be covered. Persona 4 was unveiled by Japanese magazines and at the time of the reveal, the game was heading straight for a 10th July 2008 release in Japan - on the Playstation 2. The game is separate (apart from recurring themes) from the critically acclaimed Persona 3 in that the setting will be much more rural and is more of a mystery thriller with fog replacing the full moon in the game. A large DVD trailer was given out in Famitsu and various videos have sneaked their way onto the Internet. The 2 trailers making up the DVD are embedded below with the much smaller introduction movie below that.
No word on whether this will make it to Europe though the US should get it easily.
No word on whether this will make it to Europe though the US should get it easily.
Friday, 30 November 2007
Odin Sphere comes to Europe (at last!)
Just when you thought it was safe to scratch another game off the PS2's RPG list, comes news that Square-Enix is making an unprecedented move to publish the Atlus USA game Odin Sphere for Europe. This is the first time that Square-Enix have published a game that is not their own. The game looked destined to never come here but it looks like it will happen after all! The game will arrive in Europe in the early part of 2008.
Source: Eurogamer
Source: Eurogamer
Monday, 19 November 2007
Trailer: Operation: Darkness
Here's a trailer for one of the 2 XBox360 RPG's I mentioned. If I'm perfectly honest, it looks pretty good. Keep an eye on it!
Gaming news in brief
Been away for a while but I'm back and now ready for a quick catch up!
Atlus announces localisation for 2 RPG's for the XBox360
Dragoneer's Aria approaches Europe
Zack & Wiki delayed to February 2008
Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness for Europe in December (maybe 7th)!
PS3's Nobi Nobi Boy shown at GameCity
Source: Eurogamer
Atlus announces localisation for 2 RPG's for the XBox360
Dragoneer's Aria approaches Europe
Zack & Wiki delayed to February 2008
Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness for Europe in December (maybe 7th)!
PS3's Nobi Nobi Boy shown at GameCity
Source: Eurogamer
Wednesday, 26 September 2007
Game Review: Riviera: The Promised Land
Every second Wednesday (OK, every so often then...), I write about a game that I've played in a short/long review. These are only my thoughts and I'm not responsible if you buy a game based solely on my review and you hate the guts out of it...
Note: This is the same review as the one I submitted to Eurogamer. Not much has changed, though a few things were taken out...
Game - Riviera: The Promised Land (PSP)
Note: This is the same review as the one I submitted to Eurogamer. Not much has changed, though a few things were taken out...
Game - Riviera: The Promised Land (PSP)
Ports eh? You either love them or hate them. For some, they can't stand them. For others, a chance to reflect on the past with hopefully new content. There's also a few who like them for another reason though. Namely, the newer gamers around who didn't get the chance to play the games that others have and loved.
One of the games that passed me by was Riviera: The Promised Land. This game came out on the Wonderswan in Japan (so the West knew little about the game's existence). This was followed a few years later by the GBA port of the game, with added CG scenes, a new art style and added events along with voice acting. This game was released in the US as well as Japan. Now, the game has received it's third remake on the PSP.
Story
Riviera didn't just come out of the blue though. 1000 years have passed since demons from Utgard last overran the gods of Asgard. These demons were defeated by the grim angels sent by the gods. Ein (your character for the whole game) and Ledah are Grim Angels, sent to Riviera to activate the Retribution, a hidden power which would destroy the demons, but would also lead to the destruction of Riviera. Ein has his doubts, and when he reaches the gate to Riviera, Ein is captured by Ursula, who upon finding out Ein's potential good, entrusts him with guarding Riviera and stopping the demons, before the Retribution takes place...
Gameplay
Obviously, the journey won't be easy. For one thing, you don't move Ein as in a normal RPG. Instead, you choose from 4 different directions to get from one side of a sub-area to the other. This is done in "Move" mode. You also get the chance to investigate your surroundings in each area by switching to "Look" mode and again choosing from one of the 4 directions. Some of these include opening chests, examining a ledge, or looking inside a well. At certain points, you might be asked to play a very quick mini-game where you have to hit the x button at the right time, or put in a password, or hit the right buttons at the right time. Most of this won't matter though. As you will need "Trigger points" for most of the game.
Trigger points are needed in order to view most of the area's surroundings (the red points of interest). These trigger points can only be obtained, either at the end of a chapter, or by winning a battle with a good evaluation of your skills.
This makes battles in Riviera that much more important as doing badly in a single battle, can lead to a shortage of points, and potentially make decisions later on harder to make. Do you take the chest or the alternative route?
It's easy to understand once you get further into the game, but it can be a little difficult to begin with. Thankfully, your faithful familiar Rose and your female companions (lucky guy) will help you throughout the first part of the game to get you customised with the system. It feels different despite a tentative link to Unlimited SaGa's system in moving. That said, the game makes you work to be able to explore and makes your journey harder if you mess up. It's a little dull not being able to walk through the world and walk into trees though!
No RPG is complete without monster fights. They're not random, but set at different points of the area. After a quick bit of dialogue, battle begins (unless you run...).
"Cadenza!"
Battling in Riviera is thankfully different as well. At first, it looks like a version of the Final Fantasy 7 ATB (Active Time Battle) system. Each player has a wait gauge and when it's empty, you execute a command. Sound simple? It is.
Well, at least until you know that you can only use items in battle. Four of them to be exact. Before battle, you must select the items that you will take into the fight. Nearly every item has a set number of times it can be used (called "Endurance points") before it disappears. Your choices here can win or lose the battle which adds a bit of tension to the game. I always had to make sure I chose the items I wanted, and even sometimes chose my items, before deciding on an almost different set of items before the final confirmation.
Some items allow a character to use a special skill aside from the normal use of an item. These can help turn battles in your favour and is one of the key factors of the battle evaluation at the end of the fight. If you were in desperate need for trigger points, you have to plan even more carefully about what items to take into battle, making the choice more tactical than you would think. Use that uber powerful weapon now? Or save it for the bigger enemies?
To unlock a skill, you need to have the character gain experience points with the item by simply using it. Training battles can be used (from a certain point in the game) at any time to gain the experience needed as items won't lose endurance points unless the enemy uses certain skills.
This method of training isn't for the easily bored gamer though as it can lead to a huge amount of grinding, which will put off some gamers. Even worse is that the inventory size is so limited, you might want to complete training with an item before it becomes full. This led me to actually train with every new bit of equipment that I picked up and slowed my progress down quite a lot.
All this talk of the skills, don't the enemies attack? Of course they do. They don't use items, but instead use a set skill at certain stages of the battle, depending on how much they've been hit, and how many in their party have fallen. It does make for some tense battles as some skills can potentially knock hundreds off your HP (and before you ask, no you cannot revive characters in battle, or at least I haven't been able to).
That all said, if you do actually fall in battle and retry the battle, you will have a slight advantage added on which can help you to finish the battle off. I never had to resort to this advantage myself but it's nice to know that the game allows this.
Conclusions
The way of moving your characters and a fresh battle system all makes for an interesting game. There's numerous endings to get (depending on which of the all female party (minus Ein, of course) likes you best, which is based on your decisions in the story) and a sense of charm that certain games lack along with it's own laugh out loud parts. The game is fairly standard for the PSP, clocking in at 30 hours (with full training). This increases if you want to get every single item and CG scene in the game (which includes getting the different endings). There's also the added ability to choose between Japanese and English voice acting, which will please the ones who hate American VA.
The battles will grate a few people though, especially those adverse to grinding in RPG's. Therefore, it's not the beginner's choice for an RPG. The game also lacks additional side-quests and is fairly linear. That limited inventory also irritated me (but does make for more decisions that can decide how the game goes on).
Unfortunately for me (I'm not aware of any other reports like this), as I played it through to it's conclusion, the game had some technical issues as well, which really marred my experience. The sound was skipping more than Skippy, the Bush Kangaroo and worse, sometimes my load files would not open. One time, I actually thought the game had managed to break the PSP altogether as I couldn't switch it on after 3 failed attempts to get my file loaded until I plugged it into the mains. I persevered because I liked the game itself and was able to overlook the issues I had. However, many gamers won't be quite as forgiving.
Which is a shame really. However, if you haven't played this before, are looking for an RPG, and are willing to overlook the technical hitches that might occur, this game will do you just fine. It's a good game, but the tedious battles will get to even the most hardened RPG player.
Tuesday, 22 May 2007
Most Wanted: Odin Sphere
Every Tuesday, I look at a game on my Most Wanted list and discuss why I want it so much as well as some details from the game.
Name: Odin Sphere
Release Date: America today, Europe TBA
Format: PS2
Developer: Atlus
Websites
Official Japanese site
Official US site
What is it?
Another RPG but set in 2D with large sprites and action based gameplay.
Why is it on the list?
The PS3 is supposed to be on the up and the PS2 almost fizzling out. This game shows that the PS2 still has a little bit of fight left in it though. The strange graphics have had almost universal appeal in the blogosphere and looks very story based. Early reports suggest that this is a long one too so more value for money. Oh, did I say it looks good too?
Why listen to me though? Have a look at the video below. Who said 2D was dead?!
Name: Odin Sphere
Release Date: America today, Europe TBA
Format: PS2
Developer: Atlus
Websites
Official Japanese site
Official US site
What is it?
Another RPG but set in 2D with large sprites and action based gameplay.
Why is it on the list?
The PS3 is supposed to be on the up and the PS2 almost fizzling out. This game shows that the PS2 still has a little bit of fight left in it though. The strange graphics have had almost universal appeal in the blogosphere and looks very story based. Early reports suggest that this is a long one too so more value for money. Oh, did I say it looks good too?
Why listen to me though? Have a look at the video below. Who said 2D was dead?!
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