They were the true punks of the video game industry
I am watching a "making of" documentary for Nocturne, and can I just say I love how absolutely theatrical and over-the-top Cozy and Kaneko were back in the day?
I'm hoping that the other PS2 entries will get the HD treatment as well. They would all look awesome with touched up graphics and better audio quality. DDS is certainly good. My memory is easily being jogged as I make my way through the game. I am a little disappointed with NG+ in terms of what carries over, but whatever. I'm trying to make sure I do the right choices in this file before jumping into part 2. I think the two biggest problems I'm having with Soul Hackers is a) I find Nemissia to be annoying, so having her be the voice of the party makes cut scenes a bit grating. Not helped that her alternate personality has the appeal of dried wallpaper. I mean I love the fact the game is filled with quirky NPC and the rest of the Spookies are okay. The game is very reminiscent of the wackier pre-P3 Persona games, and I'm digging that. Hell I even like the Dark Summoner plot, but I don't know, I'm not digging the protagonists and it just seems like the rest of the cast is more interesting. b) This is an issue that also hurt Devil Survivor and Persona 4 for me, I'm really kind of blah on the demon selection so far. Not as many new ones I care for, and old standbys are few and far between, so I'm rarely happy with my monster team makeup. I know there are some great ones in this game, but it looks to me like a most of them are endgame or tied into NG+ since I doubt I'll want to grind the levels needed to summon them. It's been kind of interesting seeing the similarities I'm having with this game compared to P4 and Devil Survivor and possibly working out why I don't care for those particular entries. SMTII is interesting, certainly a graphical leap from the first game. The setting is very interesting so far. I won my fight in the gladiator battles, searched for a lost boy, discovered I used to be a Messian Temple Knight, and now I'm running errands for them. One of the most interesting little game things I noticed was there is a big screen TV in one of the squares in Valhalla that shows the news, and it actually shows several different "news events" when you look at it. There is a lot better world building in this entry than the first one. Gameplay is mostly identical except for the fact this is the entry that introduces the idea of transferring skill in demon fusions. The gameplay is also a bit better balanced with magic still being powerful, but not dominating like it was in the original, especially the Zio spells. It's been really interesting so far, though I hate the Center's layout because they re-used the Cathedral map from SMT1 for it.
Tell me about it. I had to delete a ton of stuff to even fit the game on my PC. Gonna have to delete it right after I’m done with it lol. Eh, I get why Soul Hackers wouldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea. I liked it a lot but it has definitely not aged well and it can be a bit hard to get hooked on it sometimes. It was one of the biggest inspirations behind my fanfic idea (which will still see the light of day in some way, shape or form someday), so it did definitely leave a mark. DDS is amazing though, absolutely one of my favs. I’m low-key hoping Nocturne HD means we’ll be getting more remasters of the PS2 megaten games, so fingers crossed for DDS and the Raidou games specifically! I still need to get into SMT2. I know it’s not hard to find, but I’m just having a very hard time finding the time to actually get into it.
Ravus really got the short end of the stick in the vanilla version. You see him maybe four times in the whole game, one of which is the boss fight, and his betrayal to Nifelheim comes out of left field for the player. Glad you're still enjoying XV. I may need to pick up the Royal edition someday. My only other gripe with XV was that the game is huge, so having it on my PS4 used up too much space. I had to finally delete it, just so I could fit the rest of my library on it. I recently finished Shin Megami Tensei 1, my only issue I had towards the end was accidentally getting lost in the Law faction side of the Cathedral, trying to acquire a diamond for the final sword fusion, and killing so many Law aligned enemies I somehow managed to shift my alignment to Chaos by the time I reached the Law Hero's room. It's amusing entering a room to see two people you've already killed telling you they need your help to open a door. I reset and made sure to basically run or negotiate my way out of every encounter until I reached the Law Hero again. Surprised how easy all the bosses were in the final dungeon. Besides that, I have been trying to get back into Soul Hackers and honestly, I don't think I care for this game much. Like I enjoy it, but it can't hold my interest for long because the story isn't really grabbing me, and I find most of the non-vision quest characters to be rather bleh. So I booted up DDS instead, but realized I let too much time pass, so I'm in NG+ mode hoping to curb-stomp my way through the game and maybe fight the Demi-Fiend while I'm at it. I have also started a game of SMTII which has also been interesting, if only because it's a bit more plot focused than SMTI.
Yeah, a lot of the exposition on the emperor and how he’s the daemon stalking the fortress is done through Chapter 13 Verse 2 - which is honestly a better Episode Gladio than Episode Gladio. It also further expands on Ravus which, combined with Episode Ignis - really helps complete his character arc and make his story really tragic in a meaningful way. Right in this whole thing I just wrote is the biggest flaw of FFXV - the story is incredibly splintered piecing it all together in a way that will leave a proper impact is hard even when it is finally complete (though it’s still much easier). But yeah, I also liked chapter 13 for the change of pace it brought. The Ring of the Lucii is also super great and I loved playing around with it. Looking forward to playing with adult Noctis today!
I never felt it was bad in the original tbh. I'd agree it overstays it's welcome, but I was happy for the change of pace it brought. I feel my bigger issues with it was just the disappointment of Nifelheim already being destroyed before you got there and the fact that Prompto's past revelation comes out of nowhere without the DLC.
So now that I’m back from my vacation, I got back into FFXV and am almost done. Will probably get into more detail in the thread but the legendarily hated chapter 13 didn’t really bother me at all, but that’s likely because they’re actually worked on improving it a lot. World of Ruin here I come!
Glad to hear you're enjoying it. I have the first one, but have yet to play it. Trying to finish Soul Hackers first but even that game is feeling a little more uphill than usual. I keep going back and forth on whether I like it or not. I feel part of my issue is that you burn through Magnetite super quickly in this installment and I've already had to stop a few times to grind for money and magnetite because i either burn through it too quickly or the payout from fights is way too low. Not that SMT1 didn't have this issue, but I feel like it's popping up more and more in this game. Probably not helped that I'm finishing up the Cathedral in SMT1 with a end game team and stash of materials, so I almost never have to worry about money or magnetite. I just finished off Asura on the Neutral route, now heading up to the top floors to deal with Michael. In Soul Hackers, I'm in the VR Art Museum and just dealt with the four old men puzzle. I still would love to see some more references to Tadashi's era of Persona besides costumes. At this point, I just w9ish they would give us a Persona Classic collection and just give us a port of the PSP versions of Persona 1+2 duology as a download for a console or PC.
The way these crossovers work, you know we’d still get teen Tatsuyuki, right? Anyway, it’s been fun so far and I’m reminded that I actually liked the first Q much more than I realized. Even though I haven’t played 5, it’s still cool to be around the phantom thieves and it’s so great to finally see the P3 female protagonist get some time in the limelight. It feels to me the characters are less flanderized this time, but I haven’t met most of the cast yet so I can’t compare really. The premise is definitely slightly more interesting this time around. Gameplay-wise, it feels more streamlined, which I guess is both good and bad. I liked how the first Q brought back sons of the more cumbersome mechanics from Persona 1, like having to pay for healing - now you’re just healed when you leave the dungeon, but then I also don’t feel like I’m swimming I cash so maybe they balanced it out? Also, after dividing physical attacks in Q they’ve come Back to merging them all into one, which is lame. But then now we also have nuclear and mind elements again so I guess it evens out. Hama and Mudo are also no longer absolute game breakers - justified by the inclusion of Eiha and Kouha. Oh yeah, and all-out attacks now work like in regular Persona in that you need to knock out all enemies - in the first Q having more characters boosted increased the likelihood of one just triggering randomly. All that said, the first boss is extremely hard, so it’s not like they completely sucked out the challenge - it just manifests differently. Lol so yeah Q is definitely an interesting little sub-series and I’d recommend it if you’re into the series in general. Yeah, we both crave that old Persona love, but we also both know they won’t do anything with Tadashi’s characters ever again so all that’s left is to just enjoy what we have. Glad to hear you’re in a MegaTen mood! It seems like a good time to be a series fan.
