Fynn's Top 25 games

[Pumpkin]

I have never played this game!

[Fynn]

Then you know what needs to be done

[Egami]

It is a really great game and it is by it that I was eventually lead to the likes of Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and Neverwinter Nights.

[Scotty_ffgamer]

I've never played Planetscape, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, etc. I should get this someday.

[Skyblade]

I have never played this game!

Neither have I.

Then you know what needs to be done

Yep, it's already on my list. I'll get to it eventually.

[Fynn]

I've never played Planetscape, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, etc. I should get this someday.

Neverwinter Nights I'd skip unless you really have a craving for D&D. I really find the base game weak. The expansions are pretty okay, but the main story of the base is just an endless slog of fetch quests through tons of dungeons that all look identical. Plus, you don't get a party, which sucks.

Icewind Dale, however, is pretty cool, but don't go in there expecting character-driven narratives, since you create your entire party this time around.

[Fynn]

Alright, peeps, we're at the podium now. Only three games left, plus a whole long-ass list of honorable mentions.

My only hint for you now is that one of the top three spots is occupied by two games.

I'll post my #3 in a couple of hours. Until then, let the guessing game commence

[Skyblade]

My only hint for you now is that one of the top three spots is occupied by two games.

Oh, so you are putting Golden Sun and Golden Sun: The Lost Age in their proper place on the list. Yay.

[Fynn]

My only hint for you now is that one of the top three spots is occupied by two games.

Oh, so you are putting Golden Sun and Golden Sun: The Lost Age in their proper place on the list. Yay.

Uh... Ha ha... Hah...

[Fynn]

#3

It is time to take a look at the podium. With three places left, you know these games are going to be something special. And indeed, back when I picked up the first of the two games that occupy the #3 spot together, I never could have expected just how important it would become to me. These two are really what changed my outlook on life significantly. If a game can teach you to really reach out to the truth even if it’s hard, or face death and accept it, no matter how painful it may be, that really goes a long way to prove video games are art. Even though these two are not direct sequels, I lump them together. There really is just no way I can choose the better of the two. Spoilers abound, but I’ll try to keep it more like the usual in the first part, focusing on gameplay, etc.. Once I start going into themes and characters, if you haven’t played the games yet and want to play them some day, I really think you should stop reading and come back to me once you beat them, so we can discuss

PERSONA 3 & PERSONA 4

SPOILER-FREE OVERVIEW

Both Persona games have a similar premise – you are a highschooler who just transferred to a new school. Weird stuff is happening, you get involved. Pretty standard stuff. The way this is implemented, however, is pretty dang phenomenal. You get to play throught the whole school year. You experience each day and get to plan out how you spend them. Whether you decide to grind your attributes, spend time with friends to enhance your Social Link rank, or go and beat up monsters in the dungeons – all those actions will take up your time and you need to carefully plan how you go about it. While it may sound restrictive, it actually flows quite nicely and is pretty natural, as long as you don’t expect to max all your Social Links on one playthrough.

Well, excuuuuuuuuuuuuse me for not having the time to sleep properly when I'm trying to save the world!

But I keep getting ahead of myself. What are Social Links, you may be asking yourself. Here’s where I’ll need to elaborate a bit more. So in these games, you battle beings called Shadows, and to do that, you use Personas, which you can fuse, much like regular demons in the SMT franchise, however this time they aren’t members of your party, instead serving as the source of your battle skills. Both Shadows and Personas are divided into the major arcana of the Tarot. Now these arcana are important. For each arcana you get assigned a person that you can become friends with. You need to spend time with them to rank up, getting to know their story, see them develop, and that in turn lets the Personas of that arcana that you create become much stronger, much earlier. These relationships are called Social Links, and maxing a Link is a requirement for unlocking the ultimate Persona of a specific arcana. In both games, there is a large amount of people with whom you can build Social Links, including but not limited to party members. This system really makes the game world feel alive, as you get to know the characters very intimately throughout the school year.

Everyone loves Nanako.

This is especially true for your closest friends, your party members. In an ironic twist, considering how cynical the rest of the SMT series is regarding friendships, both Persona games make a big deal out of the fact that your group can really rely on each other. The sometimes traumatic events that transpire throughout both games take a genuine toll on all the people involved. Especially in P3, the characters react like real-life human beings would, and you get to see them evolve and grow throughout the year, learning about them more and more, layer by layer, as you really grow closer. It comes off as no surprise then, that my favorite video game character of all time is Junpei Iori from P3.

No, no, the pleasure is all mine.

I’ll get into the themes of the stories soon, so those wary of spoilers beware. For now, let me move on to the battle system, music and version differences Battles mostly take place in dungeons which are separate from the life sim part of gameplay. They utilize a modified version of the press-turn system, where the one character that struck an enemy’s weakness gets to attack again and again as long as they keep striking weaknesses and knocking Shadows over, and once all the Shadows are down, the entire party unleashes an All-Out attack, which is pretty devastating. While P4 simplifies the system a bit, combining the three physical attack types into one, for example, it also allows you to actually directly control all your party members, making for a much more streamlined experience than P3 (although the PSP version changes that, so really, both games are equally enjoyable at this point).

Aww yeah!

The music for the series is nothing short of phenomenal. Shoji Meguro uses a lot of vocals in these two soundtrack, performed by two singers with very distinct voices, along with some rap by Lotus Juice mixed in. There’s also a lot of rock and electronic, but that’s more of a staple form Meguro. I’m just gonna let the music speak for itself, it’s really one of my favorites.

Now there’s a bunch of versions to choose from when playing these games, three for P3 and two for P4. The original P3 on the PS2 is basically the only one you should really skip, and the two other ones – P3 FES for the PS2 and P3 Portable on the PSP each have their own merits that makes it really hard to decide which one is better. FES adds a lot of things that later appear in P3P too – a new (amazingly well written) Social Link, armor changing the look of the characters, etc. – but it also adds a unique element in the form of a bonus chapter called The Answer. I personally was not a fan of The Answer. Yes, it added some much needed explanation to the game’s ending, but it’s just the dungeons without the life sim aspect and it’s super grindy, and while the writing is still really good, a lot of the conflict seems really artificial, only forced in there to fit a theme that felt really out of place in the context. But that’s just my opinion I vastly prefer P3P and would really recommend it to newbies. Yes, it cuts a lot of corners – the life sim areas are now firt-person, which hurts quite a bit, but you get used to it pretty quickly, and the anime cutscenes are gone (good riddance, IMO – they were really weird in the original) – but other than that, I’d say it’s the most wholesome game experience, even if it lacks The Answer. The addition of Skill Cards and ability to control all your teammates in battle really streamlines the gameplay, the additional difficulty modes let you really tailor your experience, but the real meat of this version is the ability to play as a female character. This may seem little, but it changes a lot. The main plot is slightly altered because of it, and the Social Links are different, all with overall superior writing than the original. Even if you’re a boy – go try out the female route! It’s really fantastic, and everything is PINK! And everyone loves pink

Yes, that Persona is a penis... What?!

Persona 4 comes in two flavors. The vanilla game and P4 Golden on the PS Vita. Now, while the Vita version has a ton of new content – new Social Links, new dungeon, new story arc, outfit changes, skill cards, more time to max Social links, etc., it doesn’t feel like that big of an improvement over the original. Don’t get me wrong, I friggin' love Golden, but the additions made here don’t seem hardly as necessary as what was done with the enhanced versions of P3 (and some do seem a bit tacked on, like Marie or, should I say, “Marie-Sue”, amirite? Geddit? Eh? ), so you really don’t miss much if you just play the original. Plus, the difficulty of normal mode has been really dumbed down in Golden, which kind of sucks.

This would have been so annoying were it not for Eden Riegel's voice acting.

Now that that’s out of the way, I want to spend a little time talking a bit more in detail about theme and characters. If you intend to play this game, I’d advise you to stop reading now, move on to the final remarks, play the goddamn games and come back to me once you’re done, we can discuss. If you don’t or just aren’t bothered – hope you enjoy this

MEMENTO MORI

The main shocking thing about Persona 3 is that the main characters have to shoot themselves in the head in order to summon their Persona. What at first seems to be a case of gratuitous violence only placed there for the shock factor, later turns out to be a truly magnificent, subtle piece of symbolism, very much in-line with the entire game’s theme. In essence, Persona 3 is an affirmation of life, mostly through the acceptance of death. The title song, Burn My Dread, deals with facing the fear of death head on and this is exactly what is the essence of the main plot. Out of your player characters, every one of them faces the death of a loved one at one point or another, and the way they all deal with the grief is really masterful. I can’t remember when was the last time I genuinely empathized with a cast so much (seriously, this game did Hope sooner and made him actually likeable and realistic, as compared to Toriyama’s nonsensical, forced bulltrout). The Social Links (mostly Akinari’s) also all deal with loss and change, which are an inevitable part of life and death. The way the story unfolds – how the calamity that approaches is unavoidable and what humanity really wants deep down, how the main character sacrifices him/herself with a smile on their face, really serves to drive the point home.

Death is unavoidable, but that is okay. Life is beautiful not in spite of death, but BECAUSE it will one day come to an end. Persona 3 encourages you to really go out there and make your life meaningful because you really only have one life to live. Seeing how such amazing characters like Junpei, Yukari, Akihiko, Mitsuru, Fuuka, Ken, Shinjiro, and even Koromaru face death head on and try to live their life to their fullest despite the looming inevitability of death is truly inspiring. In essence, really, this game is even more about life than about death, mostly embodied through the robot Aigis who is only beginning to learn how to live her life and is prematurely faced with the loss of the person she has loved the most.

I first played this game still as a kid. When I replayed it later as an adult, I only then realized how important this story is. I used to just not think about death because it made me feel depressed. But this here little game really made me realize that, in the end, there is nothing to be afraid of. No one can escape time; it delivers us all to the same end. I am now able to accept death, thanks in part to this game, and I am not exaggerating here. For dealing with such a heavy topic that many find depressing, I really can’t think of a game that is more uplifting, and more able to make you appreciate the beauty of life and how its fragility really gives it a sense of meaning and purpose. I know that I will never forget this story and how it helped change me.

REACH OUT TO THE TRUTH

Where Persona 3 has guns, Persona 4 has glasses. While overall the theme of Persona 3 speaks to me much more, I also really love this game’s theme. With the glasses, the main cast can see through the fog, disperse the lies people have shrouded themselves in, the fog obscuring the truth.

Persona 4 is about the truth. The real truth. The truth often hurts and may not be very comfortable to deal with. Most people will seek to avoid it in order to just live out their peacefully, closing their eyes from what they don’t want to see. But as the main party proves throughout their journeys, the truth isn’t so bad when you have friends by your side. And, likewise, it’s only through complete truth and honesty (honesty towards oneself, most of all) that you can truly make real friends.

And what marvelous friends they are. Though I find the cast of P4 much more riddled with anime tropes and a bit less like real human beings (hello again, Junpei and Yukari), I love how the bond of trust they share throughout the game is so genuine. I really felt as if I was a part of a really caring, trusting group of friends, and it all really made sense. They all witnessed each other at their worst, and they accepted each other for whom they really were, even if they were still all teens and really weren’t sure what they were at that point themselves.

Kanji's my favorite P4 character, by the way.

From a narrative standpoint, it’s a bit weaker, since the characters reach their personal epiphanies before you even get to meet them properly, but that’s okay. They all really gel well and the most enjoyable parts of the game are the scenes where they get to spend time together. That, and the murder mystery, since this is what the game’s plot is, in essence! Because what other type of plot could be better when your theme is the truth?

In all, while I didn’t feel like this game change my life quite as significantly as Persona 3, I really had a blast playing though it. It also helped me come to terms with some areas of my personality that I couldn’t accept beforehand, so yes, both this and P3 have a big catharsis factor for me. I use that term too much, I’m sorry

FINAL REMARKS

I really, really recommend both games so, so, SO much. Difficulty shouldn’t be an issue due to the ability to choose some stupidly easy difficulty modes. The tone is really upbeat most of the time, so it’s easy to get into, but when things get serious, they get really serious. Both games are really long and offer tons of fun things to do. It’s a bit hard to get used to the scheduled nature of the gameplay, but once you do, it becomes second nature. Both games suck you in so hard it’s not even funny, and deal with very profound themes in an incredibly well-thought out way to boot. I really can’t stress this enough.

GO PLAY THESE GAMES.

[Karifean]

Ah, that reminds me, I wanted to play Persona 3 and 4 at some point.

[Skyblade]

Yeah, I have to agree with pretty much all of this.

Personally, I rate Persona 3 over Persona 4, as I think it's tone and themes are more consistent throughout (which I attribute to ATLUS just having a lot more experience writing with a darker tone). But they are both fantastic games, and are not to be missed.

As Fynn says: Go play these games. The gameplay mechanics aren't perfect, but the writing is, quite simply, the best that video games have to offer.

[Pumpkin]

They sound interesting. I might pick one up one day

[metagloria]

It seems like I'm obligated to play these eventually based on how much praise they get, but they just seem...so...weird. Mainly the flow of game progression. Of course, I'm the guy trying to tell everyone not to worry about the clock in Lightning Returns, so I guess it's probably not as big a deal as it seems.

[Electroshock Therapy]

Reading this list and your personal connections with these games really makes me want to play them all. However, I probably will never touch half of these games due to time and money.

And time.

And money.

(But probably mostly due to memory)

But, still. These reviews are really good reads. I'm looking forward to your top two.